"You don’t give up, do you. Didn’t I send this back to you last time?"

"Take a closer look. It isn’t a training request. It’s a suppression request."

Finance Minister Count Reinfeldt glared at me for a moment before reviewing the report.

The contents stated that a band of bandits called Berten on the outskirts of Eisten had rapidly grown in size, with at least 20 or more estimated to be under their banner, and that I would suppress them in order to maintain the duchy’s security.

Naturally, the bandits I had wiped out while saving Viktor’s family were also listed in the request. Those were confirmed results, after all, and I couldn’t leave them out. And since their hideout still remained, I planned to attack it.

"You’ve already wiped out their main force. You really think there are stragglers left at the hideout?"

"You can’t know unless you check in person. But please don’t dismiss it as mere conjecture."

"Still, the fact that the bandits’ numbers have shrunk is undeniable. I will not pay out campaign expenses for more than 30 men."

Since the request was being made on the grounds of suppression—one of the order’s primary missions—even the Finance Minister couldn’t reject it outright. But there were ways to interfere indirectly, like cutting the authorized headcount.

But I had a trump card.

I produced a high-quality scroll and showed it to the Finance Minister.

"T-this is?"

The Finance Minister’s eyes went wide as he checked the contents. The vivid look of bewilderment on the spiteful old raccoon’s face felt like a decade’s worth of indigestion melting away. It was a Breisburg trial commission.

A piping hot commission freshly issued by the Judicial Minister.

It was an official document bearing the Grand Duke’s signature, which was why the Finance Minister was so taken aback. Although it was term-limited, in effect it made the Gale Knights a legitimate region-wide investigative agency.

And among the various privileges, the one I liked best was this: if supplies ran short, I could requisition them on-site and bill all costs to Finance. The suppression request was just a procedural formality, but I didn’t even need to bother collecting the campaign pay.

I could simply submit invoices that exceeded the campaign pay anyway.

It wasn’t embezzlement. It was operational spending.

"As you said, campaign pay for 30 men will do just fine. We can requisition whatever we lack on-site. Haha, please don’t be too shocked when the invoices come in later."

"...I will pay out the campaign pay you requested. In exchange, reduce the requisition rate."

"If you pay out sufficient campaign funds, naturally there will be no need to requisition on-site. However, there may be unavoidable circumstances requiring requisition, so please bear that in mind. Surely the Finance Minister wouldn’t deny a special privilege granted to me by His Grace the Grand Duke?"

The veins on the Finance Minister’s forehead had to be bulging by the dozens. Well, who told him to be such a tightwad? If he was going to squeeze me through the order’s finances, I could squeeze him right back through judicial privilege.

The Gale Knights, as the Grand Duke’s direct order, had all funding overseen by Finance. So requests would routinely get rejected without justifiable cause, and even when funded, only the bare minimum was paid out based on the order’s size.

It was so bad that I’d had to bring in outside funds on the condition of Adelbert posting a finance bureaucrat permanently at the order’s headquarters. From the men’s standpoint, living alongside a tax-collecting bureaucrat was uncomfortable, but thanks to that arrangement, the headquarters renovation had finished quickly. Nothing to be done about it.

So while running the order, the curse "those finance bastards" started slipping out of my mouth, transcending faction lines. As expected, the Military and Finance Departments were eternal rivals who could never get along.

From Finance’s standpoint, they were trying to keep a tight rein so money wasn’t wasted, but that didn’t make me any less furious. Especially since the Finance Minister had singled me out for special attention.

"Greetings, Lord of Feuzen. You’re looking cheerful."

After savoring the Finance Minister’s sour expression, on my way back I ran into Mort—Adelbert’s right-hand man and the Elsheimer family’s son-in-law. He was one of the people I was most wary of.

Mort was the man who had assassinated Deputy Inspector General Rüdiger. I’d nearly died too, caught up in the incident alongside the Schlange men, but with no evidence, there was no way to hold him accountable. He was an exceptionally cunning bastard.

"The Finance Minister gave me a swift approval."

"I see. Is it related to the order’s activities?"

"That doesn’t seem like a matter that should concern you."

"Oh, my apologies."

With our positions completely reversed, all traces of Mort’s former arrogance had vanished, and he was now perfectly courteous to me. There’s a reason they say that in noble society, whoever rises to power is king.

In particular, behind my back, they apparently called me the duchy’s biggest social climber.

The phrase carried a strong note of mockery. From the perspective of the entrenched establishment, it must have galled them to see a low-ranking noble suddenly muscling up to their level. It was like being treated as nouveau riche.

Mort, perhaps trying to ingratiate himself, brought up various Finance Department matters as conversation topics. Honestly, none of it was particularly interesting information. Still, I played along.

"I’ve kept you for too long. Have a safe trip back."

"Give my regards to the Inspector General."

Watching Mort’s retreating back, I deactivated the Manager Scouter. With anyone else I might let my guard down, but when dealing with Mort, keeping the scouter running was essential.

He was still wearing a mask.

He’d tried to give the impression that he wanted to be on good terms, but his mindset had already given him away. It had clearly registered deceit toward me. He was as unsettling a man as ever.

Once I returned to the order’s headquarters, I summoned the Vice Commanders.

It was just Fiel and Viktor, but it was easiest to relay orders through these two. After all, the boss doesn’t give instructions to every employee individually—he goes through the executives.

Unlike other organizations, I had divided the hierarchy in detail.

Every 10 members made up one squad, and the commander-class knight leading each squad was called a lieutenant. Above them, a Vice Commander oversaw two squads each. Ultimately, as Commander, I would only need to give orders to the five Vice Commanders, completing a streamlined chain of command. We only had 70 men so far, but I’d set up the structure with future growth in mind.

Honestly, it was a lot like a regular corporate org chart.

Members were employees, lieutenants were team leaders, Vice Commanders were executives, and I was the hired CEO. The chairman was, of course, the Grand Duke. The Gale Knights were the Grand Duke’s property, and I was just managing them on his behalf. Still, since the Commander’s position had no fixed term, as long as I didn’t die, I could serve as Commander until the day I did.

The Commander’s annual salary was 180 silver coins. Vice Commanders got 96, lieutenants 60, and rank-and-file members 36—you could think of those as fixed labor costs. On top of that, there were campaign pay and various allowances.

It went without saying, but if you earned merit, big rewards followed.

If you captured the enemy’s commander-in-chief, your life could change overnight.

You could become a lord in your own lifetime, like me. Simple, right?

That was why, even after cutting so many cavalrymen during disposition screening, the competition was still fierce. Viktor said he was surprised that the men were more disciplined and obedient than he’d expected.

"I don’t think I’ve ever seen a unit this well-controlled."

"That’s because we only selected men who follow orders well. We weeded out all the bad apples."

"How on earth can you tell? Do you have some kind of standard?"

The men I’d picked might be slightly lower in raw skill, but they had positive dispositions and the bearing of good soldiers who didn’t act out. No matter how skilled, men who tried to slip out of control were of no use to me.

I’d learned this from watching the Euz cavalry that Fried had supplied during the last war. We’d repelled an enemy ambush with a counterattack, but ignoring orders, the Euz cavalry had pursued the fleeing enemies on their own.

They’d gained some minor results, but I had captured none other than Count Épinay.

The frustration Fried must have felt as the heir of Euznirk had to have run immeasurably deep. If his reckless men had followed my orders obediently, they could have proudly shared the credit for capturing Count Épinay. A textbook case of penny wise, pound foolish.

In the end, I had let those men sit at the lowest place at the table out of consideration for Fried.

Fried had seemed deeply embarrassed by his own men at the time.

The duchy army cavalry were the same. So many of them treated plundering as a source of income that controlling them was a real headache. That’s why, at least for my own order, I selected based on positive disposition.

"I have one request. I would like to move my family’s residence to the order’s headquarters."

"You’d feel more at ease away from Breisburg, wouldn’t you? Understood."

Viktor harbored deep distrust and a sense of betrayal toward the royal family, so I let him have his way. As it happened, the guest annex within the order’s headquarters was empty, and I gave it to him.

That seemed to have earned me Viktor’s strong trust.

He was my subordinate now, but he had been my father’s friend, so I wanted to treat him well.

Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud!

We set out as soon as the minimum supplies were ready.

It was the Gale Knights’ first official campaign, and no one could hide their excitement. The real start was now. Some men were steeling their resolve, while others were swearing to their parents back home that they would rise in the world, or kissing the handkerchiefs of their beloveds.

What a colorful bunch. Adorable boys.

"Vice Commander Viktor, your armor was at home?"

"Yes. Thinking I’d never wear it again, I had hidden it under the bed."

"From now on, don’t go stuffing it under the bed."

"I’ll keep that in mind."

Viktor had two horses, but both were packhorses unfit for war, so I gifted him one of mine. At first he insisted it was too generous to accept, but after I pressed it on him, he came to dote on the Holland-bred light horse. He even named it Dorf.

A knight really does fall hard for a fine horse.

After August, Viktor became the second knight I’d given a horse to.