Imperial Affairs (Levi X Reader) AU

46. Manager Work

Reader's POV

"Are you done?" I asked Reiner, who was buried in the piles of records of the people from the Underground that were brought up here, "Did you find him? Furlan Church, right? Levi's friend."

"He isn't here," Reiner answered as he read the last record.

"And the preparations? I have to leave in an hour."

"You are sick!"

"I know. So, are the preparations made?"

"Almost," Reiner sighed, "The storm has gotten calmer but it would be difficult getting through even after the sacks and sacks or salt we've thrown on the snow to melt it."

"Don't worry about it," I answered, "Oh, and bring Levi when Mikasa and everyone else is ready to go back. If the weather is okay by then, then bring Kuchel; if it's not then leave a few guards and a carriage behind to bring her when the weather is better."

"Yes, Your Highness," Reiner arranged the records back to how they were kept before as I laid back in my bed, thinking about what Levi would be doing.

Levi's POV

She is my mother. I want to spend time with her after seeing her after so long but this gloomy brat.... Why is she here? And Mother wants her to stay. Why?

And why do I still have to go and do the stupid accounting the managers were supposed to do? Can't the prince see that my mother is here? But I can hardly blame him because it isn't like he has many people that he can give this work to. And I suppose that I still feel at peace when the gloomy brat stays with Mother when I am working. Even though I hate her, I know that she will take care and protect my mother even though she is safe in the palace and the gang members that have come up here from the Underground won't try to harm her when she's under the prince's supervision even though it's indirect.

Most of the people from the Underground have been cooperative. I mean, even some gang members who I have heard about seem pretty calm and collected up here. Some people, however, do not like the place and are demanding to have more and the prince just told me to give them the option to go back if they wanted to and that always shut their tantrums up. The prince told me that as much as he wanted to provide more facilities, his budget was running low. He had cut from Stohess's budget and people were starting to catch on and he had to fix everything before this news got to the Emperor.

He explained how Stohess wasn't his own land like Dukes and Marquesses who had their own dukedoms and marchies. He was a prince and only got a section of the Empire to manage along with money from the Emperor taken from the people's taxes to manage the place. It was also managed by the district tax of Stohess that went straight to the prince.

Technically, what he was doing right now was corruption. He was taking people's money and using a part of it for people who lived in his personal lands that the empire didn't own; it was his personal property. He told me that he couldn't do anything about it since he had already drained his palace's budget enough that if more was taken out of it, it would hurt his dignity as a prince and the Empire's dignity on the luxuries provided to the most prominent Imperial child and a potential heir to the throne.

I had no idea why he told me all this but he did, saying that it would be useful to me one day.

I don't know why he bothered explaining the whole concept of taxes to me.

Whatever.

"Cigarettes," A bald dude who had even less hair than Connnie walked up to the counter I was assigned.

"We don't have cigarettes," I glared,

"Ya don't?" He gasped.

"Nevermind," I remembered that we actually did have cigarettes as I walked to the drawer that I had been told the cigarettes were kept in, opened it and snatched out a pack but didn't hand the box to the outstretched hand of the bald man.