Mathew had dark circles under his eyes, he hadn't stopped working for the last two days, and the mountain of scrolls barely looked any different.
However, his tiredness didn't make him any slower, and with each stroke of his ink brush, a line of letters appeared on the empty scrolls he was holding. -" One more! How many more families there are in this village?" He complained as felt that the amount of work never decreased.
-" This is the nineteen people we documented." Curtis sighed as he looked at the sky, even though he was tired from all the work. " From the total of 95 village residents."
Mathew was grateful that the village wasn't populated, and continued to work. " There is still so much, but, at least we can finally see the end of it." Mathew quickly finished the scroll and placed it on top of a small pile of documents.
-" You will be surprised how fast we will finish all of this." Curtis finished one of his scrolls and quickly put it on the same pile of documents. " There are 95 residents, but, many of them live together, so we only need to document about half of them."
-" So we are about halfway over?" Mathew let out a deep breath in relief, he already expected that the number of households wouldn't be so high as there were likely many families in the village.
-" You can say that." Curtis looked at Mathew in pity, the prefecture was so out of order that he wouldn't have a good night of sleep in a very long time. " Well, at least my work is, you barely started." Curtis laughed as he looked, even the prefecture administration building was in a horrible state, not to mention the rest of the village.
Mathew grinned, if he knew that he would have this much work to do, he would never accept Allan's promotion.
The two of them continued to work without stopping, only having small pauses to eat and other necessities. The land reclamation was going smoothly as all the villagers respected Simon, who was the one responsible for marking and finalizing the final procedures.
And just like that, another three days passed, and it was finally time for Curtis to return to the provincial capital. Mathew was quite sad to see one of his only company leave, but, the amount of work he still had on his shoulder didn't let him dwell on his departure too much.
The land reclamation was still ongoing, and there were a few things that Mathew had to deal with, especially since some villagers were trying to take advantage of Simon and get more land than they previously owned.
-" So? You say that you owned all the land between that mountain in this river?" Mathew had an annoyed expression on his face, the bold lies of the village were too astonishing for anyone to believe.
-" Yes! My family lived here since the founding of this village, so we got much of its land!" The young villager puffed his chest in pride as he talked about his family history.
Mathew gave Simon an odd look and gestured for him to take the lead.
-" What the hell are you talking about? Aren't you Old Julius' grandson?" Simon had a furious face, his work would already be done if it wasn't for the scummy villagers trying to take more than what they owned.
-" Huh? Do you know my grandpa?" The young man's face fell as it looked like his lie was easily caught. " Oh Yeah! I totally forgot! It's been so long since I been here that I didn't recognize the place, my family lands were actually from that small hill to this stream." He quickly tried to fix the situation, as he feared that they would do something to him.
Mathew checked the information he had gathered, and this time, the young man had told them the truth, and he quickly passed him a small scroll. " This is your land Title, please sign here." Mathew quickly finished the last procedure and warned him before leaving. " Remember to not lose this! It will cost you to get another one of those."
-" Sigh... Can you believe how greedy they are?" Simon was disillusioned, he never thought that the villagers would try to get something more from this situation, "Even after suffering so much under Nicolaus' greed, they still want to do something like this."
-" That's precisely why they want more things." Mathew gazed at the sky and smiled, the land reclamation was finally coming to an end, and he could finally have a good rest. " Just getting their land back isn't much, they want compensation for all the things they been through."
Simon's eyes flashed in realization, and even though he thought that they should be compensated for the situation, he wasn't sure to whom they needed to direct their anger. " That's true... but, why are they acting like this to us? We don't have anything to do with this!"
-" We are government officials... well, at least I am." Mathew grinned as he looked at his friend, " To them, there is no difference between me, Nicolaus, or any other Imperial Bureaucrat."
-" Of course there is! Just look what Nicolaus was done! You are nothing like him." Simon still couldn't understand why some of the villagers were acting so struck up.
-" Forget it, this won't matter after today." Mathew patted Simon's back, he was happy to at least have a friend here. " Let's go eat, I want to finish everything this afternoon."
After a bit of thought, they decided to eat in Mathew's old villa, things were a bit rowdy there as he was moving his things to the magistrate villa, where Nicolaus previously lived.
-" This is quite a nice house!" Simon looked around the villa in awe, the place was spacious and had many rooms. " I never lived in such a good place."
-" Do you want to stay here?" Mathew asked while he prepared some vegetables for a stew. " You may not believe it, but, this house is actually mine, not from the prefecture."
-" Your house?" Simon was even more impressed as he learned that. " How did you buy something like this?"
-" You get quite the hefty amount of money after passing the Imperial Exam, besides that, the pay of a Tax Examiner is not that bad."
-" Tsk! Why did I have to join the army? I should have chosen to become a bureaucrat too." Simon instantly regretted his life choices.
-" Well.. becoming an Imperial Bureaucrat isn't easy you know." Mathew knew very well how many hardships Sigebert had gone through to pass the Imperial Exam. " Hey? Why not become the Jail Warden or the Preficnt Chief? There isn't anyone stronger than you here, so you will be quite the fit for the job."
-" B-B-But? I'm not an Imperial Official." Simon was shocked by Mathew's offer. " Can I even work on something like this?"
-' Of course, you can! The previous Precinct chief wasn't an Imperial Official too." Mathew wanted to staff the prefecture with people he could trust, he had a big plan for this small village and would need plenty of help. " Only the people involved in the Tax department need to be official bureaucrats."
-" Can I really?" Simon's eyes were full of tears, he didn't expect to have such a big opportunity so late in his life. " I won't let you down."
-" Just know that this won't be easy..." Mathew finished cutting all the vegetables and threw them into the big metal pot. " We have much to do to put this village in order." The prefecture was totally empty, leaving Mathew to do all the work, so he was happy to find his first helper.
The two of them finished their brunch and went out again, however, this time the two of them were in an exceptional mood, Mathew due to finally finishing the land reclamation, and Simon for his new job.
There were only about four families left, and they were already even living on the lands they used to own, and they just needed to finish all the small details.
-" Old Gerald!" Simon shouted as he knocked on the door of a small shack. " We are here! Come sign your papers!"
Mathew had a frown on his face as he looked at how miserably all the villagers were, even if they had their lands back, their situation didn't improve much. Clifton had left much of the land in disarray.
Weeds and bushes covered a good part of the arable part of the soil, and almost all the buildings in those areas were destroyed too, making the villagers who returned to their homes live in temporary wooden shacks.
-" Simon? Did my time finally come?" Gerald's face was full of emotions, he never thought that he would recover his lands. " Thank god for this! At least I have something for me to give to my children when I pass away."
The old man's attitude made Mathew even more anguished, he didn't want to let the villagers live such a harsh life, but, for him to change the village situation he needed to work very hard.