TPIMAWW Chapter 7

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Chapter 7: It didn’t work out.

Although Craig had warned Shun not to get too close to him, they were still colleagues, and seeing as Craig was the group’s head, the opportunity for them to talk to each other still came.

The best example of this was during Craig’s income and expenditure report.

“A Barn Merchant on 2nd Avenue paid me 39,522 for the guy on the eighth, and I got fifty thousand for the thief I caught on the tenth.”

Shun moved his hand toward Craig’s report in the chair next to him.

He didn’t look up as he inked the quill, which was difficult for him to use since he was used to ballpoint pens, and wrote the numbers into the A4 account book.

“And yesterday’s bodyguard’s payment was 800,000.”

Come to think of it, he was a bodyguard.

Craig peered over at the first page of the account book in Shun’s hand as he was adding the word “guard” to the list of sorting items.

“Did you make this yourself?”

Shun was so startled he almost fell out of his chair. He never expected Craig to speak to him.

It was true that they exchanged words that were essential to perform their jobs, but it really was the bare minimum.

Craig didn’t know if the newcomer, Shun, was messing around, so the income and expenditure report always went straight to him from Shun.

Even in situations like the current one where Shun is informed of payments, the rule of “keep away from me” was usually still enacted. Craig usually read out the amount from business partners from the chair or the desk near Shun and then left without hesitation.

Craig put down the notes of the report from Gin and the other members of the group and looked at Shun suspiciously.

Shun couldn’t say that Craig was the one who told him not to talk, so he sat up in his chair and nodded at the question.

He was sure that Craig already knew this, but their previous ledger was in shambles.

Although the dates were stated firmly, it was commonplace to see over the course of the month duplicate details written twice or thrice, and it was impossible to tell whether the month was even in the red or black, let alone the final net profit or loss, because the information was just jotted down in a messy manner.

At the beginning, it was clear that Craig had been solely in charge of it as it was in a clear, easy-to-understand format.

However after that, their number of people in Dawn Fog increased, and the accounting was relinquished to others, subsequently causing it to be unclear and incomprehensible.

For a moment, I had felt hopeful upon unearthing the beautiful ledger, but then he received the ledger from Gin that was convoluted from the accumulated entries.

To make matters worse, Gin’s explanation was entirely unhelpful from the way he prefaced it with, “I don’t really understand it well.”

For the time being, Shun knew that he couldn’t rely on anyone else and started to do something on his own.

Although Shun had never submitted a white paper¹ before since he was banned from working as a sideline, but Shun has done bookkeeping and kept a household account book.

While casually listening to the castle’s previous bookkeeper, Shun managed to draw a line on a brand new notebook and made his own account book with the dates listed vertically and business partners and sorting items on the side.

Each page included the weekly balance, and with that, Shun could easily calculate in his head the final monthly gains or losses to list on the final page of the book.

“That’s impressive.”

Craig picked up a dark blue book from Shun’s desk and flipped it over.

It was only a week ago that he began to work on the current ledger, as well as reworking the past one, and he had gotten up to two months ago listed in his format from what he could garner from the old ledgers.

The book that Craig was holding now was one of them.

The compliment wasn’t for the format itself, but rather the amount of effort it had taken Shun to draw lines over dozens of pages, to pick up the information from the chaos, and the speed of his calculations for accounts spanning across several months.

“Oh, thank you.”

It felt more like a soliloquy, but since Shun could hear him, he decided to express his thanks anyway.

Craig looked embarrassed for a moment at the sound of Shun’s voice.

After all, he regretted that it was aimed at Shun, and he kept the books without saying anything and quickly moved from next to Shun to the central sofa.

It felt bad.

Though Shun didn’t say anything and went back to work.

However, there was not much to do this time, so he ran out of things to do early on. It was almost time for the sun to set.

Shun had decided to review the past books early in the morning when he could concentrate better, so he was only about halfway through the day.

He had time before he headed home.

The most troubling thing, though, was that Craig and Shun were the only ones in the sitting room. Craig clearly has no clue how uncomfortable Shun is while he’s sitting on the sofa and leisurely reading a book with a thick, red cover.

“If you don’t have anything else, you can go home.”

Even though Craig glanced at me over the backrest, Shun couldn’t make himself move.

Ever since he had graduated from university, he had worked until the last train rather than leaving on time.

Is it okay to leave early, even if he isn’t sick?

Craig’s mysterious, golden eyes gazed at Shun, who showed no signs of leaving.

“I’m serious. It’s a waste of time to stay behind and do nothing.”

“You’re serious. You’ve got nothing left to do.”

There is something to do!

It wasn’t work, but if he’s thinking about the future, now was the perfect time to try to deepen his relationship with Craig.

He almost stood up with his fist raised, but as soon as he met Craig’s gaze, his excitement waned.

Shun has mentioned this several times before but, Craig was super beautiful.

It’s not only that, but he’s also a skilled swordsman and has the leadership skills to lead the Dawn Fog, a group of rogues.

In Shun’s former world, he could have joined a large company, worked well, and taken home at least three, beautiful women from a party every night.

How was Shun supposed to get along with such a fashionable person²?

For Shun, who is so conscious of his plainness that he doesn’t like it, he even feels like he’s going to get hit even if he tried to talk about the weather.

If there was something that he could easily talk about with him despite being an anxious person, Shun could easily open up to him.

“Would you like to play Old Maid…?³“

“What?”

“Nothing.”

Shun withdrew his offer at the speed of light and focused on the books.

What is he even talking about when he doesn’t even know if they have Old Maid in this world?

He doesn’t even know if they have playing cards or not.

How do all the non-clubbers of the world survive?

Shun was getting used to Craig’s suspicious gaze.

Now that he’s being looked at like this, it was safer to hold onto his “Become Craig’s friend” plan for another day.

Shun opened up the ledger from three months ago, sighing.

He would do a full-scale overhaul of the following morning, but for now, he decided to rescue as many numbers from the chaos as possible until the sun sets.

Just three months ago, their previous bookkeeper had disappeared, and Gin was subbed in as the pinch hitter. (TN: what a bad pinch hitter… Press F to pay respects to Craig’s baseball team.)

It seemed that with the job changing hands suddenly, information loss was guaranteed. The books from three months ago were missing a lot of information.

He had the dexterity to groan with his head in his hands and chase the numbers with his eyes for a while. However, it soon became clear that the previous method he had been using wouldn’t be enough and began to draft a different form.

“Ah.”

“What’s the matter?” Craig asked Shun, who had stopped calculating.

“Well, I’m looking at the balance from three months ago and four months ago, but it’s a bit strange.”

Shun had honestly forgotten about Craig completely in his focus.

He held up the ledger and showed it to him, feeling embarrassed by how unexpectedly loud his voice was.

When Craig came over, he bent over and looked at what Shun was pointing out.

Although Shun knew he had no other intentions, he couldn’t help but shrink away from him.

He didn’t seem to notice and looked at Shun’s hand with a bitter expression.

Craig traced the spot where Shun had written a “X”.

There is something curious about the bounty he received from four months ago.

Some of the names of the bounties were missing, or there were multiple names that were unnaturally similar.

The latter gave the impression that someone created it.

Tomorrow, he could match the names of the people that Dawn Fog had captured against the information from the security bureau, but if they didn’t match, there were too many of them to be cleared up by human error.

“I believe we caught a pretty big one that day. As luck would have it, Diane came across me in the tavern getting drunk and didn’t damage any equipment in particular.”

Craig murmured, recalling the memory.

However, the price was as same as that of a thief.

Moreover, since there was no damage to the swords or clothes recorded, that didn’t mean that the expenditure was deducted in advance.

As for the other days, they were also inconsistent with Craig’s memories.

Since there is no bank system, nobles, large merchants, and farmers all manage their own money.

The Dawn Fog’s money was no exception, and these savings were kept in a tightly locked safe.

Shun remembered being forced to count all of the gold, silver, and copper coins that were kept in hemp bags piled up ceiling-high.

Of course, because he wasn’t trusted yet, he was blindfolded and taken into the room by Craig and Diane, who doubled as inspectors.

Shun had never seen such a large amount of money, and it was difficult for him to not be dazzled by it. However, the stern gaze and the sword ready to be unsheathed at any moment was too close for comfort.

If he did anything even slightly suspicious, his head would fly– instantly– and he was, fearfully, diligently devoted into being a money-counting machine.

Shun was keenly aware that he was entrusted with the accounts of a terrible organization that had the wealth of a large merchant, despite being a commoner’s organization.

In other words, there may have been some money behind the scenes, but Shun was well aware of the amount of savings the Dawn Fog had.

Using Craig’s memory, Shun reorganized his calculations.

He then discovered that the amount was short.

When Craig saw the negative sum that Shun wrote down, he tsked.

“Four months ago … that was when I was out of town for a time, so they were stretched thin.”

It seemed that Craig had been away from the Dawn Fog at that time.

Shun had seen the signature in the original book. It was easy to tell that this had been done by a man named Zaz⁴, who was in charge of the books at the time, taking advantage the chief’s absence.

“He was from a merchant family and had experience as a bookkeeper. I hired him because he was a good swordsman, but he had bad behavior, so I kicked him out three months ago. So he was embezzling money. I should have looked into it sooner.”

Craig replied with an uncomfortable air. Shun had heard about Zaz’s bad behavior from Gin and Diane in a variety of complaints. It had been one thing after another with him, such as breaking all the bottles in a bar out of spite when a woman refused him and damaging a noble’s carriage.

Even so, it seemed that Craig patiently employed people who were strong, but Zaz had gotten up to his usual, old tricks and was fired because of an incident one morning where he had caught the whole city on fire, including the Dawn Fog’s hideout.

Thanks to how Craig and his team handled it, the incident wasn’t a big deal, but the cost of that final screw-up was not small.

It had garnered the antipathy of their neighboring population and forced Craig to move them to their current location three months ago.

In a world where there were no moving companies, it must have been more difficult than Shun thought.

Finding a replacement for the bookkeeper and reviewing the books had to take a back seat.

Shun had a feeling that the house they had been in before was the one that he’d seen in the game.

If Craig’s route went on, he would surely end up in this house. That had to be why the heroine that Shun was controlling got stuck in the early stages of the game.

It was a bit frustrating.

“It must have been hard.”

He wanted to say something clever, but Shun didn’t have that skill and could only think of simple expressions. Still, Craig seemed to understand his intentions.

“It’s all over now. Besides, thanks to you, we found out about his embezzlement. Well done.”

Craig put his hand on Shun’s back as he pondered.

Shun unconsciously looked up to Craig, who stood next to him, speaking with a gentle tone that was different from his usual harsh voice, and his hand was warm.

He wondered if this meant they could get along a little better.

Craig moved away from Shun immediately after a moment of embarrassment.

“…well, it’s getting dark. I’ll take you home today.”

Craig wouldn’t even look at him now, and his voice had regained its usual gruffness.

Shun did not hide his disappointment and meekly responded that he understood.

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1. A white paper is an in-depth report or guide about a specific topic and the problems that surround it. (TL Note: I have actually seen one of these before, but I didn’t know that this is what they’re called. Ah, administration.)

2. The raws said a party person “パーリィピーポー” but uh, that’s just from his assumptions I think, so I went with fashionable? But maybe ya’ll can help me find a better word for here…

3. The dictionary I used said the game was Old Maid… but if not, it’s probably fine. ^^;;

4. “ザズ” when I googled it, all I got was results for a musician called Zaz, so hopefully the name is correct ;;

TL Note: Poor Shun doesn’t realize how overly conscious Craig is of him TToTT Silly baby, Craig is looking at you with eyes full of something more intimate than friendship. I’ll see ya’ll with the next chapter on Friday!

Word Count: 2,410

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