Inheriting a Lost Bloodline, My First Task is to have heirs?!

Chapter 706 - Visiting the in-laws: Ancient City of Kalina (Part 2)

Since studying to be a scribe is quite expensive, the Cassia family purposely offered to sponsor young individuals with talent generously until these young men and women were blinded by their so-called kindness. Eventually, when their guards were down and right before they completed their education, they were tricked into signing unethical contracts that will technically make them slaves to the family as a means to pay the "kindness" shown to them when they had nothing.The sponsorship that these young individuals thought was free was actually only a trap to emotionally blackmail them in the future. It was actually a carefully packaged debt contract turning them into slaves for the Cassia family. All the things that was originally sponsored to them will then have to be paid through labor for several years written in very fine print.

As for the contract itself, if they only read it well, they would see that these young people would need to pay for this sponsorship like it was some kind of high interest loan. As for the payment, the family did not need money but labor instead with a measly pay. Just with the total sponsorship amounts alone, it would take a person about 10 to 15 years to pay off the amount before they can finally regain their freedom.

As to why these people couldn’t complain even if the later batches of students saw what happened to their seniors, the students they targeted were orphans and those from very poor families. Since this particular group doesn’t have anyone backing them up, they would have no one to call on for advise or anyone to help them out of their predicaments. They were tricked into those contracts just as they were at their lowest points and the sponsorship was the only path they saw to get out of poverty.

Honestly, I hate it the most when people take advantage of those that do not have any other way out. I hate it when people bully those that are already down to start with.

As for the sources of the copied manuscripts and books, most were also illegally procured. They were either bought off for dirt cheap, stolen or the author of the material was sent away by force with their reputations tainted so that they would not be able to claim ownership of their original works. There were even some instances that the author died due to depression or anger but since they weren’t killed directly, these cases were just deemed as natural deaths due to old age, sickness or mental health problems.

For this family of robbers and fraudsters, it would be best to ruin the carefully crafted reputation that they tried so hard to keep clean while hiding tons of shady things they did to others. I kept the victims and witnesses safe for the upcoming public trials. I also visited the Cassia family’s hidden storage where they kept the original copies of books to make sure I take them all and replace them with plain paper. I can surely use these as evidence for the plagiarism and theft cases then return them to their rightful owners. As for the money I will use to compensate the victims, of course, I also visited the Cassia household treasury for that.

I did quite a number of things differently while in Kalina since there are just so many cases that can be filed officially for the crimes I have discovered. Though I still started with the auditing of official documents and permits released throughout the years, I did not forget to also look into the few brave complaints that were submitted but never had answers to.

From there, I took each and every instance where no taxes were paid, business ideas were stolen from their original owners and claims of conflict of interest or favoritism into consideration since the business owners were family members of the Cassias either by affinity or consanguinity.

Due to these numerous cases that spanned for so many years, I personally decided (with the approval of the royal family, of course) to fire all of the current people who are in position that dealt with anything about businesses or financial matters for Kalina, technically leaving only the Duke and a few honest officials. Replacing these rotten people were new approving bodies instead made up of nobles, merchants and even educated common people to keep it fair and balanced. They were hired through a rigorous hiring process that included written exams, background investigation and interviews done by me.

The first governing body would ensure that there is fairness on the procurement and approval of business permits and registrations. The next governing body will focus on the handling on the ownership confirmation and certification for intellectual property like pieces of art (paintings, sculptures, machines, other inventions, etc.), written materials (books, manuscripts, scripts for theater plays and official newspapers or publications) as well as business ideas registration (same with modern day patenting). The last governing body will focus on reviewing and approving contracts for any financial or labor transaction throughout the city.

All the people who were in position that was involved in the previous anomalies were either demoted with a one year pay cut or were removed from their position with a penalty of returning anything they have stolen. For those businesses that were skipping on the paying of taxes and legal fees, they were asked to pay it all back in one go within a month or their business permits will be permanently revoked and they will be banned from setting up any other business within the city and duchy in the future. Since they enjoy robbing people and making them desperate, I will make them feel the same way as the next steps of my plan unfold.

In the future, whatever option they choose, pay the fees or forfeit the business, it will hurt them a lot either way. They have not discovered the loss of their gold, money and jewels from their storage that I used to compensate the families of the witnesses so the Cassia family is still confidently agreeing to paying the fees within the month. I am just not sure though how long they can agree to paying what they owe freely before they feel the brunt of their impending bankruptcy.

Since these decisions were from the central government audits, they had no choice but to comply if they do not want to lose their noble status and rank. After those cases were handled and the perpetrators had signed IOUs to pay off what they owe within the month, I started sending anonymous letters in behalf of the authors that were robbed of their original works.