It had already been a few days since my farewell party at the Hot Springs Settlement ended.

　I had returned to my usual duties as the lord of the small frontier city of Liberty.
　
　Dealing with petitions and complaints from the city's citizens.
　Tour of the city
　A meeting of heads of departments in the town hall
　Meeting with representatives from other cities and communities

　The main thing is this.

　Liberty is overwhelmingly populated by sub-humans, with a 9:1 ratio of sub-humans to races.
　Perhaps that's why the ratio of sub-humans is also overwhelmingly high among the newly-influenced city folk.

　However, recently, beginning with the emigration of a former aristocrat from the royal capital, Riboneia, who took his officials with him, there have been an increasing number of cases of people of the race living in the vicinity of the royal capital emigrating to the city.

　This is closely related to the fact that Liberty operates a regular mage ship.

　The distance between Liberty and King's Landing, which used to take nearly a month to travel by horse and carriage, can be covered in half a day if you take a regular mammary barge, and it seems that people are beginning to feel no need to go to King's Landing.

　This is because the taxes in the royal capital are extremely high.
　In simple comparison, the amount of tax for an ordinary life in the capital is almost 10 times higher than that in Liberty.
　This is due to the large total population and the need to have a large number of employees in public institutions, and the fact that King's Landing is solely responsible for maintaining security on the frontier.
　Although the financial situation of the capital is published every year, there has long been a sense of uncertainty about the true amount of tax revenue and how much of it is spent, as is evident from the fact that the question of how much of this figure is correct is the subject of intense debate at the annual meeting of the Royal Capital Council.
　The cities within a few days' ride of the capital, for example, all have the same or slightly lower tax rates as the capital.
　Nevertheless, many people do not leave the capital, even if the tax rate is a little higher, because the city does not have the same capacity to maintain security as the capital and does not have water, sewage, and other public facilities.
　However, there are a few areas in the city where the tax rate is set at a low level.
　Many of them are in the back streets where the sub-humans live.
　The king's capital, which promotes the Bobblebum doctrine of racial supremacy, continues to adopt measures to exclude sub-humans, but it does not try to exclude all sub-humans.
　This is only because it needs a certain number of people to work on jobs that people do not want to do, such as cleaning work and sewage management.
　Although there are some disadvantages, such as the fact that instead of low taxes, there are no guards to patrol the streets, so they have to organize vigilante groups, and even if the streets, water and sewage systems are damaged, they are not easily repaired, so they have to fix them themselves, but even so, there are not a few sub-humans who do not leave King's Landing because of the high wages, regardless of the nature of their work.

　In such a situation, the King's Capital decided that all escort duties would be handled by the King's Capital's guards, and all the sub-human mercenary groups that had been engaged in this work until then were eliminated.
　In the meantime, I, who was staying in King's Capital at that time, recruited several sub-human mercenary groups to Liberty and hired them as new Liberty guards.
　When I was working in King's Landing, I heard that in addition to the contingency fee, there were many cases where the employer's race would make some kind of complaint against you and you wouldn't receive the remuneration you were originally promised.
　Everyone in the sub-human mercenary corps is grateful for that treatment, and the majority of sub-humans work very hard.
　However, there are some who try to be lazy because of the fixed salary, but they are strictly disciplined by the leader and deputy leader of the sub-merged mercenary group to which they belonged before.
　Furthermore, there is no hindrance in that area, as the guard captain, Googus, who stands above him, and his assistant, Lil Pop, a demon in the position of an inner wife, are always keeping an eye on him.

　Rumors of Liberty's generous treatment of the former royal capital's sub-human mercenaries seem to be spreading all over the place, and adventurers who are confident in their skills sometimes come to Gugus as guard volunteers.

　Ever since the former frontier small city of Gegemose was incorporated into Liberty, there has always been a shortage of guards, and at this rate, this problem will soon be solved.


　Liberty's population is gradually increasing, and it continues to develop as a city.

◇ ◇ ◇.

　Nearly in the evening, after I finished visiting the head of a skallion settlement living near the city, I returned to the lord's office to take a break.
''How about taking a break, little one?
　My secretary, Anya, brought me a cup of tea at the right time.
　I thanked her and sipped my cup of tea.

　Preparations for Liberty's promotion to a frontier city are progressing.

　The only problem that remains is that it's going to be a sub-lord.

　Currently, Liberty is a frontier small city.
　A frontier city does not need to have a vice lord.
　However, to become an outlying city, it needs to have at least one lord and two deputy lords.
　If the lord is a sub-lord, he or she must appoint another sub-lord of the same or more racial group, and must have the same or more racial groups as the sub-lords in a council system.
　In Liberty's neighbourhood, this is the frontier city of Greencomb.
　Liberty currently appoints Eldena the Elf as Deputy Lord.
　So we need to appoint at least one more person.

　As for this one person, it is preferable to select one from the race of Eldena, as she is a sub-human.
　This is supposedly to prevent the sub-human sub-lords from colluding and trying to unseat the lord.
　Nevertheless, knowing that there was once an incident in the frontier city of Batcombe where a racial deputy lord secretly joined forces with the church forces to kill the lord, Gelter, and rule Batcombe in his hands, one can't help but wonder about this idea as well, and twist one's neck.
　However, I'm still thinking about who should be selected according to this policy because I don't know what the inspection team of the Central Frontier Management Bureau will say if I don't make the appointments in accordance with this policy.

　........but....
　Liberty has a small racial population to begin with.
　The selection process has been difficult because the race itself that works at the town hall is first and foremost small.

　There are some ideal people, but....

　This is Biblina.
　Biblina has already cleared the frontier city training I took the other day and is qualified as a frontier city lord.
　She has experience working as a frontier city guard, and recently she's cooperating with the guards here in Liberty to maintain security with her own knights, so the town hall and the people of the city think favorably of Vibrina.

　But the problem is........Biblina is the daughter of the lord of the frontier city of Batcombe, Gelter.
　Since Gelter has no other children, the current situation is that Biblina is Gelter's successor.
　
　........To be honest, I don't understand what is so attractive about me at all, but it seems that not only Biblina, but also Geltar likes me very much, and Geltar has been very impressed with me at every opportunity.
Take care of my daughter for me.
Do you have kids yet?
　I receive such letters every now and then.

　When I was thinking about it, I was drinking a cup of Wunya tea.
Oh, Safate, there you are.
　While saying that, that Biblina herself came into the lord's room.
　Biblina walks in front of me while laughing good-naturedly as usual.

　According to the guards and the knights under her command, she usually only wears a spicy expression and rarely smiles, but I, on the contrary, don't remember seeing her spicy face so much....

　In the midst of all this, Biblina put her hands on my desk and pulled her face to mine.
'Safate, have you decided on another deputy lord?　If you haven't already decided, I'd like to run for office.
　Biblina said, looking me straight in the face.