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ArabicArknights: Prime Minister of Kjerag — Chapter 2
Chapter 2: My Sister Is The Saintess!
Practice is the sole criterion for testing truth.
Ernst knew that even if he could miraculously broadcast his situation to the outside world and beg the vast sea of netizens for guidance, it would be utterly useless. The keyboard warriors of Zhihu would just spin up a self-aggrandizing fictional story that solved absolutely nothing. The trolls on Weibo would eagerly instruct him on how to incite gender wars and internal national division. The Bilibili crowd would passionately demand he launch a full-scale leftist revolution in a deeply traditional religious state. And the degenerates on Tieba? They would probably just ask him whose feet smelled worse: Enya’s or Encia’s.
Obviously, it was Encia. Even though the youngest SilverAsh sister didn’t exactly bundle up in conservative winter gear, she was constantly climbing, running, and sweating up a storm. Basic logic dictated she would have more of a scent than Enya, who was pampered and waited on hand and foot all day long in the temple.
Not that Ernst had ever personally verified this theory. Ever since Enya ascended the Holy Mountain and was crowned the Saintess of Kjerag, she rarely came home. Ernst only managed to catch a glimpse of his sister a few times a year.
Without practical experience, one naturally had no right to speak!
A maxim was a maxim for a reason; it applied everywhere. But theoretical internet politics were a different beast entirely. Stirring up class conflict or launching a red revolution were absurdly premature concepts for the current state of Kjerag. If he so much as breathed a word of such disruptive nonsense, the Three Great Families—including his own stern brother, Enciodes SilverAsh—would reach a unanimous consensus by tomorrow morning. They would decide that letting a lunatic sit in the prime minister’s chair carried far too much risk, effectively ending Ernst’s political career after a grand total of one day.
In Ernst’s pragmatic view, if Kjerag actually wanted to achieve any tangible progress right now, there was only one viable path forward.
Make money!
Stepping into the modest single-story house that had been hastily converted into the new government office, Ernst settled into a creaking wooden chair. He looked up at the black-haired, twin-tailed Cautus girl who had quietly followed him inside.
“Miss Monch, could you fetch me this year’s government financial report?”
Monch blinked, visibly caught off guard. She clearly hadn’t expected this man—who had just been spouting absolute nonsense on the inauguration podium moments ago—to immediately demand financial statements instead of taking a nap or ordering lunch.
Fortunately for Ernst, both her nominal superior, Sciurus Browntail, and her actual superior, Gnosis, were the type of people who treated accounting like a foreign language. This glaring administrative gap had forced the poor Cautus girl to develop a rather strong set of financial skills just to keep things running. After a brief moment of stunned silence, she gave a crisp nod and turned to leave the room.
Watching her walk out without bothering to close the door, Ernst simply shrugged.
He knew exactly who Monch was. This quiet girl with the exaggerated twin pigtails currently served as a personal guard to Sciurus Browntail, the second-in-command of the Browntail Family. As for where her true loyalties lay, Ernst wasn’t entirely certain, but he knew for an absolute fact it wasn’t with Sciurus.
There were exactly two people in all of Kjerag who possessed a supernatural inability to recruit even a single competent, intelligent subordinate. One of them was Sciurus Browntail. This was a universally acknowledged truth across the snowy nation, even recognized by Sciurus’s own sister, Ratatos. The fact that Sciurus herself was still blissfully unaware of this only cemented its validity.
Therefore, Monch was most likely reporting directly to Ratatos, or perhaps she was a deep-cover spy planted by the SilverAsh Family. As for why she couldn’t be a mole for the Paleroche Family… well, the other person on that aforementioned list of ‘incompetent recruiters’ was Arctosz Paleroche.
Brother Bear treated everyone with straightforward loyalty. You didn’t play complex espionage mind games with Brother Bear.
Ultimately, her factional allegiance didn’t matter right now. Kjerag’s total population hovered around a mere one million, and ninety-nine percent of them were devout religious traditionalists or simple farmers. Expecting them to grasp modern fiscal policy was a pipe dream. If Monch couldn’t do it, was he supposed to draft the national budget himself?
No matter which family paid her salary, she was a citizen of Kjerag. As the nation’s first prime minister, Ernst decided his perspective needed to be magnanimous.
A few minutes later, Monch returned. She was carrying a massive, heavy wooden box in her arms.
She dropped the box onto the desk in front of Ernst. The old wood groaned in protest under the sheer weight.
Ernst pointed at the dusty container. “What is this?”
“Account books,” Monch replied with absolute solemnity.
Ernst felt his heart sink into his boots. “But I asked for a financial statement. You know, the kind with neatly categorized income and expenses, properly dated records, and a bottom line?”
Monch stared at him as if he had just asked for the moon. “You can submit an application to Lord Enciodes for a blank one.”
Ernst buried his face in his hands. “But a blank one is empty.”
Monch nodded seriously. “So you will need to fill it in yourself.”
‘Then what exactly did I hire you for?’Ernst grumbled internally, caught between laughing and crying.’I might as well have found some random bright-eyed kid on the street and trained them from scratch. At least they’d be my direct subordinate!’
He had mentally prepared himself for Kjerag’s financial situation to be dire, but he truly hadn’t expected it to be this apocalyptic.
Other countries operated on a financial deficit. Kjerag operated on a financial disappearance!
It was a genuine miracle that this frozen nation hadn’t completely collapsed in on itself yet. In that moment, Ernst felt his faith in the great goddess Kjeragandr grow exponentially stronger. Only divine intervention could keep this economy afloat.
Perhaps sensing her new boss’s mounting despair, or perhaps realizing that forcing the newly appointed prime minister to manually calculate a nation’s worth of raw receipts on his first day was a bit cruel, Monch offered a helpful reminder.
“Lord Ernst. Before the establishment of the National Assembly, Kjerag was entirely governed by the Three Great Families. The SilverAsh Family, the Browntail Family, and the Paleroche Family were locked in constant, secret competition. Naturally, it was impossible for them to disclose their territorial financial situations to one another. However, there is one place that absolutely possesses the consolidated financial ledgers of all three territories.”
Ernst lifted his head, his silver-grey eyes blinking in realization.
She was right. The three clans would never share their books, but Kjerag wasn’t a completely lawless, fragmented state. Above him, the prime minister of the secular government, sat a much older, far more authoritative institution.
“You mean the Karlan Temple?” Ernst asked. “But isn’t that strictly a religious institution?”
The moment the words left his mouth, he realized how foolish he sounded.
History proved that religious institutions were always the absolute best at hoarding money. Back when the medieval popes were swimming in unrivaled treasures, their accountants’ mathematical prowess led the entire world!
Monch, however, immediately poured cold water on his revelation. “, the Grand Elder of the Karlan Temple is not an easy person to deal with. He is extremely hostile towards the SilverAsh Family for founding Karlan Trade. It will not be easy to pry those ledgers from his hands.”
It was a fair warning. The Grand Elder was the physical embodiment of stubborn conservatism. If anyone else approached him, the old man would undoubtedly scream about how the ancestral ways could not be changed and violently refuse to hand over the temple’s sacred records.
But the person asking for these ledgers wasn’t just anyone. It was Ernst!
The young man confidently pushed himself up from the creaking chair. He grabbed his heavy winter coat from the nearby rack, slinging it over his shoulders as he marched toward the door.
“It’s fine! The Saintess of Kjerag is my sister! And my sister dotes on me the most!”
Translated from shameless little brother speak, this simply meant:
—Nepotism makes the world go round!