Horace rubbed his aching temples, trying to keep his voice calm. "Marika, I think you need to understand something. The Golden Dynasty is probably crawling with vermin."
He picked up the procurement list and pointed at the price of arrows. "An ordinary arrow, even with wartime price increases, should cost no more than 200 Runes. They've quoted two thousand here. That's a full tenfold increase."
"The other items are the same." Horace leafed through the other documents on the desk.
"Either suspiciously low prices or abnormally high ones. They're probably either embezzling or laundering money."
The Crucible Knight beside them trembled. I didn't! I didn't do anything!
He put down the documents and looked at Marika. "They're taking advantage of you, of your unfamiliarity with actual prices and your lack of a head for numbers."
Horace paused. "To put it bluntly, they're exploiting your level of education as a 'village girl' to embezzle money in broad daylight."
Unexpectedly, Marika was neither angry nor surprised.
She merely nodded calmly.
"I know."
Horace froze.
"I've always known. Even if I was born a village girl, I know how absurd it is to charge two thousand Runes for an arrow."
She raised a hand, tapping the desktop lightly with her fingertips. "I can't do arithmetic, but that doesn't mean I'm stupid."
"Then why don't you..." Horace stopped halfway through.
Because he had already guessed the answer.
Marika smiled bitterly. "Because there's nothing I can do."
"For them to embezzle this much, this openly... it means everyone along the entire chain is taking a cut, from top to bottom, from procurement and approval to funding and implementation."
"What can I do? Kill them all in one sweep?"
She shook her head. "No. If I kill all the nobles, who will do this work? Who