In the city square of the Capital, cheers rose from a thousand throats. The newly promoted Treasurer of the Central Province accepted the keys to the city treasury from the retired taxmaster with a brilliant smile. As he looked over the assembled citizens singing his praises, the perfect smile softened into something more genuine and heartfelt.

“Thank you, my friends! I value your support,” the Treasurer said in a voice of warm honey. “As a token of my gratitude, one thousand coins for each member of the Sun Revolution—yes, even the children—and two thousand for every single one of you here today.”

The mayor’s mouth dropped open. Citizens murmured to each other in shock, questioning whether they had heard correctly. A financial authority willingly offered money instead of demanding it? The world had indeed changed with the Sun King’s arrival.

The Treasurer waved a hand. Behind him, two aides opened the double-doors to the treasury and wheeled out a wagon overflowing with gold—more money than most citizens had ever seen in a lifetime. One of the aides held a bucket of the sort normally used to extract water from wells. He scooped out a heaping bucketful of coins and handed it to the Treasurer, and the Treasurer in turn offered the bucket to the crowd at large.

“Well? Who’s up first?”

Silence. Then, a thousand voices screamed with joy, and the citizens charged as one. Behind the Treasurer, the old taxmaster fainted.

Not two hours after the Treasurer’s promotion, an urgent correspondence from the Sun King himself appeared on the desk of the City Guard filing office. The astonished clerk summoned his superior at once, and an equally astonished Sheriff soon held an order for the arrest of one Treasurer of the Central Province.

To incur the enmity of the very top, this Treasurer must have been a dangerous criminal indeed. The Sheriff stuck a baton and a sturdy set of iron handcuffs in his belt. Thus prepared, he set out to find the target.

As the Sheriff walked, he heard people murmuring positively about the Treasurer. The trail of praise thickened as the Sheriff approached the shop-laden streets in the business quarter of the city, and he soon found the Treasurer in a popular tavern.

The Sheriff seated himself at a corner table to observe for a few minutes. The Treasurer’s identity was obvious; he still wore the ceremonial robes of a newly promoted civil official, and he sat at the exact center of the fifty-some crowd of tavern-goers. Some of the Treasurer’s conversation partners held mugs of drink, but the Treasurer himself had only a tray with a simple meal: bread and soup. Everyone praised his sensible reasoning, nodding to his words with unwavering agreement and support.

“‘Put the country above yourself,’ they say, ‘think of the greater good.’ But who will look out for your good? Who will look out for you while you’re thinking of the greater good? Well, it doesn’t have to be so dreadful. Think of what’s best for you, I say—think of the vegetables growing in your garden. Think of how your sales will improve this month. Think of your career advancement prospects. Think of you, and let the country sort itself out, eh?”

The Treasurer chuckled, infecting the whole table with good cheer. Even the Sheriff felt a small smile grow on his own face. The Treasurer spoke of such mundane topics as sales and crop growths; these could not possibly pose any threat to the Sun King. Normally, the Sheriff would never have looked twice at such an obviously honest and friendly citizen. However, there must be some reason for the Sun King’s suspicion. Disobeying the Sun King’s command would not be helpful to the Sheriff’s future prospects, especially so soon after he had been pressed into service in the City Guard.

The Sheriff would have to arrest the Treasurer, but arresting someone amid such overwhelming support would lead to trouble. The Sheriff needed to lure his target away from the crowd before acting.

With this goal in mind, the Sheriff left his dark corner for the bustling center of activity that was the Treasurer’s table. The Sheriff need not have worried about finding a seat; with the judicious use of sharp glares and pointed clearing of the throat, several drinkers recoiled from his presence. He slid into the clear spot on the bench, sitting across the table and two seats down from the Treasurer himself.

“Ah, a new face,” the Treasurer cried, spotting the Sheriff. His voice was smooth and melodious. “I’m afraid we haven’t met before. I just became the regional Treasurer, but I don’t know everyone around here yet. And you are...?”

“No one important,” the Sheriff demurred, suppressing a grimace. All fifty-plus of the Treasurer’s followers were looking at him now. Drawing the Treasurer away from the crowd for a quiet arrest would be trickier than the Sheriff had anticipated.

“Don’t be so humble, friend.” The Treasurer’s golden eyes glittered with intelligence. “Let me guess: soldier, or maybe City Guard? You have the look of a sword expert.”

The Sheriff puffed up in pride. “That’s right. You have sharp eyes, Treasurer. I’m one of the best swordsmen in the land.”

Sheer delight flashed across the Treasurer’s face. He held a hand to his chest, gasping. “Could you be... the famous Sheriff of the City Guard?”

“Exactly.” The Sheriff grinned as well, enjoying the genuine admiration in the Treasurer’s voice.

The conversation unspooled from there. Soon, the Sheriff had lost track of the time, caught up in the flow of the Treasurer’s neverending enthusiasm. The Treasurer’s empty plate had long since been pushed to the side. Now, he regaled the Sheriff with tales of his time as a wandering arms merchant.

“Why, just recently, I came across a rare imported blade. It is such a shame that this top-quality dagger fell into the hands of someone who cannot make full use of it. I was never any good at fighting.” The Treasurer slanted a sideways glance at the Sheriff. “But you, dear Sheriff, you know your way around a blade better than anyone. You might very well be the owner it was destined to have.”

The Treasurer drew a sheathed dagger from his sleeve. The sheath was embossed leather with gold leaf designs crisscrossing the surface. The dagger had a beautiful glossy surface, with a pristine silver-colored blade, a copper-brushed crossguard, and an engraved wooden handle. Despite the decorations, it felt heavy and solid in the Sheriff’s hand. This was undoubtedly a well-forged dagger from an experienced weaponsmith.

“Think of how dangerous it would look, hanging from your belt... flashing through the air... striking fear into the hearts of your enemies,” the Treasurer said, tilting the sheath until light caught on the golden patterns.

“Impressive. How much?” the Sheriff asked, still admiring the heft of the shiny knife.

“To celebrate our friendship, I’ll give it to you at an extremely bargain price. Let’s say, seventy coins,” the Treasurer said.

The Sheriff gaped at the price. “Only seventy coins?”

Seventy coins for such a fine weapon. Either the Treasurer did not know the value of the item he sold, or he was indeed making a huge sacrifice in the name of their newfound friendship. The Sheriff produced the amount from his coin pouch in an instant. Such a unique dagger—and at such a fair price! The Sheriff could not suppress his warm smile as he tied the sheath to his belt. Having a friend in the weapons-dealing business was surely an excellent benefit for anyone in a military line of work.

A grey-haired fellow stumbled over to them, slamming an empty mug onto the table between the Sheriff and Treasurer.

“Bribery and corruption!” cried the old fellow. The Sheriff recognized him as the recently retired taxmaster. “How dare you call yourself Treasurer. Giving away my hard-earned taxes isn’t enough for you, ohhh no! Now you offer bribes to the Sheriff in a pitiful attempt to curry favor. Have you no shame?”

Such insolence could not go unpunished. The Sheriff reached for his sword, intent upon teaching the taxmaster a permanent lesson. Instead, he found an iron chain dangling from his belt. Handcuffs—right, he had been meaning to arrest someone today.

The Sheriff snapped one end of the irons around the taxmaster’s wrist. “You’re under arrest.”

“What for?” The old taxmaster tried to wriggle free, but he was too weak—and also a fair bit too drunk—to escape the Sheriff’s hold.

“Disturbing the peace.”

“What peace? This is a tavern!”

“The Treasurer’s peace of mind.” The Sheriff sent a tight smile to the Treasurer, and the latter accepted the apology with a little wave of farewell. As the Treasurer dove back into conversation, the Sheriff hauled the protesting taxmaster out of the tavern.

At the city prison, the Sheriff tossed the old taxmaster in a cell. He then burst into the City Guard filing office, snapping his fingers at the clerk on duty.

“You there. Record one arrest: the former master of tax collection.” The Sheriff paced across the office, anger twisting his voice into a low grumble. “Idiot was slandering the good name of the Treasurer... who even does that? We were just having a nice chat, and then the guildmaster appeared out of nowhere. Just started cursing at him for no reason.”

The clerk’s eyebrows shot up, but he dutifully marked one new arrest in the logbooks.

“I’m not sure that I understand, sir. You found the target, but you arrested someone else?”

The Sheriff spun around, jabbing a finger at the insolent clerk who dared question his judgement. As he opened his mouth to terminate the clerk’s employment, his gaze strayed over the desk. The yellow wax seal of the Sun King shone from atop a stack of paper.

The Sheriff’s hand wavered in midair before dropping to his side. He took two steps back, anger turning to realization in the space of a breath. Although the text was unreadable to the Sheriff’s untrained eye, only one correspondence had arrived from the Sun King in the past few days: the order for the Treasurer’s arrest.

“Yes, that order,” the clerk said, tracking the Sheriff’s gaze. “Shall I read it for you again?”

The Sheriff shook his head, raising a hand to his face. Then, he shook the rest of himself. The motion set the new dagger swinging at his side, and the Sheriff untied the sheath from his belt. The dagger felt solid and sturdy, but even the perfect fit of a high-quality blade to his palm could not banish the Sheriff’s mortification. If his fellows found out that he let a criminal escape the law in exchange for giving him a dagger—no, even worse, for selling him the dagger—he would be the laughingstock of the City Guard.

“No need for that. Just fetch me five guards as backup,” said the Sheriff, pulling the dagger an inch out of the sheath. The mirror-polished surface of the blade caught a ray of light from the window, momentarily blinding the Sheriff. He hung the sheath at his belt again. “The Treasurer is a sly one. He caught me by surprise before, but that silver tongue won’t save him this time.”

The Sun King sat crowned in light, but fury drew stern shadows upon his mild features. As the Treasurer approached, flanked by two members of the City Guard, the Sun King stood. The guards pushed the Treasurer to his knees, and the Sun King descended from the dais. Even outside of the sunbeam filtering in from the windows, the Sun King seemed to glow with otherworldly power. He jabbed a finger at the Treasurer.

“Your carelessness cost us three years of tax reserves. I should strip you of all ranks and leave you to rot in the prisons, never again to see the light of day.” The Sun King circled his subject, hands clasped behind his back. Cold disdain shone upon his stony expression. “You still breathe the free air only because my Alchemist pleaded on your behalf. He insisted that you must have a good reason for this... this gratuitous misuse of government funds.” The Sun King stopped in front of the Treasurer, meeting golden eyes with the warmth of a sudden smile. “Prove him right.”

The Treasurer’s eyes widened. Then, he flashed a wide grin.

“Indeed I do have good reasons, my King.” The Treasurer explained his plan.

By the end of the Treasurer’s words, a skeptical expression had come across the Sun King’s face.

“Guards, drag this presumptuous fool back to prison,” said the Sun King. “If his predictions do not come true in three months, cut off his head.”

“One month is enough,” the Treasurer replied, and his grin held the absolute confidence of a professional salesperson. “Summon your regional governors upon this day next month, and you shall find the reward that I promise.”

Over the course of the next few weeks, reports trickled in from the neighboring province and city record offices. The seasonal tax collection rose by almost half, while the number of new recruits signing up for this month’s Sun Army entrance exams had nearly tripled from the previous count. Rumors in the streets praised the Treasurer’s generosity in virtue, and by association, general praise for the Sun King’s rule abounded.

Come the end of the month, the Sun King was highly impressed. The Treasurer’s scheme had worked splendidly, both in recruiting new soldiers and in gaining favorable popular opinion, all at the cost of a small amount of money—indeed, less than it would likely have taken to hire the same amount of mercenary soldiers from the village militias.

The Sun King sent for the Treasurer, who arrived shortly from the city prison. Shadows had coalesced below his eyes, and his shoulders drooped with a trace of defeat from the lockup. He collapsed to his knees before the dais, head hanging low. However, when the guards unlocked his bindings, the Treasurer’s old cheer returned.

“It worked,” said the Treasurer.

The Sun King nodded.

“You foresaw what I could not. Your actions align with the people’s hearts.” The Sun King rushed forward, helping the Treasurer to his feet. “No need to kneel. You are hereby promoted to National Treasurer. I would be a fool to deny your competence after I have seen it proven.”

The Treasurer bowed humbly. “If a simple merchant can help in the rebirth of a nation, then I am glad to offer my services.”