The Monster Who Tamed Gold

Even though it concerned his family, Adol-san already knew about the morning's incident.

It was surprising, given that he didn't seem to associate with anyone.

"Moomya-san went out of her way to come tell me. I didn't expect the people involved to show up as well, though…"

"There's something we'd like to ask you about."

"I'll apologize on my son's behalf for the trouble he caused you. He tends to get fixed ideas in his head and can be a bit extreme in what he does, but I never thought he'd go that far."

Invited inside the shack, Adol-san bowed his head to us.

It was matter-of-fact, almost perfunctory.

"What happened with your son is water under the bridge… He'll be receiving his punishment, after all."

"Then what is it you need?"

"We heard from the viscount that you used to work at the Adventurer Insurance Association. We came hoping we could hear a bit about it."

"… I see. Wait here a moment."

Adol-san disappeared into the back and returned with hot water poured into wooden cups.

Since there were no chairs, we spread handkerchiefs on the floor and sat down casually.

"I'm sorry, but I wasn't expecting guests, so this is all I can offer. I carved the cups myself."

"You made these by hand? They're very well done."

The wooden cups had patterns carved into the outside, and the inside was hollowed out cleanly.

You could easily believe they'd been made by a craftsman.

"I can't work outside at night, so it passes the time. Back in the day, I didn't even have time to come home… I could barely take care of that boy."

There seemed to be quite a bit of backstory here.

But I had no intention of prying.

"The Insurance Association, you said."

"Yes."

"What do you want to know?"

"Well, let me start with the basics. I've heard it was established to provide compensation for adventurers."

"That was at its founding. A passionate guild member established it, believing the Adventurer's Guild needed a compensation system. The idea was to fund it by deducting from quest fees paid to adventurers."

This much was the same as what we'd already been told.

"But in practice, it didn't work out. Why do you think that was?"

"Because adventuring is dangerous work? The death rate is high, and injuries are an everyday occurrence. If you tried to compensate for every single one, no amount of money would be enough… something like that?"

"Exactly. The compensation system was welcomed by adventurers at first, but as the payouts piled up, the amount deducted from quest fees grew larger and larger."

I could already see where this was going.

"In the end, they had no choice but to scale back the compensation to adventurers. Due to opposition from the adventurers themselves, no less. Interestingly, it wasn't the high-ranking adventurers who earned large quest fees that objected the most, but the low-ranking adventurers who stood to benefit most from the compensation. There's a saying that insurance is an unlucky lottery, and they simply didn't want to pay for a ticket they'd never win."

"I see…"

A noble ideal that reality couldn't keep up with, perhaps.

Hearing just this much, it didn't sound like such a bad organization.

"But if the organization still exists today, that means it survived, right?"

"There was talk of dissolving it at one point. That's when the Finance Minister stepped in to lead its restructuring. Back then, he was just an ordinary robe noble who didn't even hold a seat in the House of Lords."

And there it was. The Finance Minister had entered the story.

"First, he kept the amount deducted from adventurers to a small surcharge on top of existing fees, so there wouldn't be any pushback. Then he began phasing out compensation payouts, which stabilized the finances and put the Insurance Association back on its feet."

"Well, that's a common enough story. Staving off collapse through cost-cutting."

I nodded at Ramiza-san's words.

You can't spend what you don't have.

"I was hired right around that time. I'd been good with numbers from working at a trade company since I was young, and I think that's why they took me on. The Finance Minister was gathering up anyone who could handle accounting."

Adol-san tilted his cup and sipped his hot water.

With a quiet sigh, as if reminiscing, he continued his story.

"The Finance Minister argued to the Adventurer's Guild that in order to provide adequate compensation, the Insurance Association itself needed a sustainable way to generate revenue. The Guild couldn't really argue, since he'd already demonstrated his ability by rescuing the Association from near-bankruptcy in short order. It didn't take long for him to seize full control of the Insurance Association."

"What happened after that?"

"He used the funds on hand to launch an adventurer loan program. Back then, even more adventurers than today went bankrupt from debt. He figured that if the interest rates were lower than the moneylenders', borrowers would flock to the Association. And just as planned, adventurers rushed to take out Insurance Association loans. Since the capital came from adventurer quest fees to begin with, it was like having two wheels on the same axle. The money rolled in fast. Those were busy times. Gathering up all those accountants had been in preparation for processing it all. I couldn't go home for days on end."

"So it went well. But if that's the case, couldn't they have reinstated the compensation? The adventurer loans were really profitable, after all."

The Finance Minister had demonstrated his skill, rescuing the Insurance Association from the brink and transforming it into a money-making machine.

Adol-san shook his head.

"As far as the Finance Minister was concerned, compensation was nothing but wasted money. As chairman of the Insurance Association, he had free rein over its funds. First, he bankrolled the expansion long dreamed of by the Adventurer's Guild, its parent organization, co-opting the mainstream faction and ensuring no one could interfere. I attended the meeting where that was decided, and it was masterfully done. The Guild eliminated the Finance Minister's opponents of its own accord. I witnessed firsthand the strength and terribleness of the power of money."

"So he made the Insurance Association his own, in both name and substance."

"That's right. By that point, there was no one left who could stand against him. It was around this time that the Finance Minister began acquiring seats in the House of Lords. With that much money at his disposal, it wasn't difficult. He only started selling bonds to expand the loan program after he became Finance Minister."

In other words, the Finance Minister had hijacked the Insurance Association and made it his own.

He'd used that power to climb the ranks within the kingdom.

And currently, no one was challenging him on it.

Even the Adventurer's Guild, which technically outranked the Association, turned a blind eye because it was receiving financial support.

"Was there no one who saw this as a problem?"

"The Finance Minister used the bonds skillfully. He made it clear that being his ally was far more profitable than being his enemy. Among those he won over was the previous king himself. A minor noble of no consequence came to wield enough power to move the entire kingdom. As for me, I couldn't take the grueling work anymore and asked to resign. And now, here I am, cutting wood for a living."

Adol-san's story came to an end, and silence filled the room.

… The Insurance Association itself wasn't such a terrible organization, I thought.

I felt bad for Master, who'd been outraged about the compensation issue, but from what I'd just heard, it seemed destined to collapse sooner or later.

If fewer people were going bankrupt thanks to the loans, that was a good thing.

The problem, if there was one, was that the entire organization was at the mercy of a single individual.

The scope of it was too vast. Honestly, it was more than I could handle.

I couldn't even judge whether it was good or evil.