Servini set down her goose feather quill, gently pinched the bridge of her nose, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath.
When she opened her eyes again, she glanced around to make sure no one else was in the City Lord's Office, then spread her arms and stretched hard.
The stretch left her body feeling pleasantly relaxed, and Servini felt a little better. Still, she could not help sticking out her tongue with an embarrassed smile.
The strict upbringing she had received in the Royal House meant she always had to maintain an almost perfect image before others. Even something as ordinary as stretching was something she could only sneak in when she was alone.
Even then, she still felt a little guilty, as though she had done something wrong.
But she could not help it. She was simply too tired.
The end of the year was approaching, and as the city lord of Bunta City, Servini had a great deal of work she had to handle personally.
All sorts of miscellaneous matters had piled up, leaving her without a proper night's sleep for nearly a week straight. By now, she felt utterly exhausted.
But this was her first year as Bunta City's city lord, and she also carried her father's expectations. Naturally, she could not afford to slack off in the slightest.
Her greatest consolation was probably seeing for herself, through the detailed figures in the reports she had been working through these past few days, the astonishing and delightful changes Bunta City had undergone.
According to Bunta City's annual financial report, the city's total tax revenue for the year so far had already exceeded a full 5.73 million gold coins.
And the year was not quite over yet. If the taxes for this final month were included,