They are all characters I control.

Her long, golden hair flowed like sunlight, her skin was fair and delicate, and her features were as exquisite as a doll's. Although she was a little too thin, her frame was well-proportioned, and her legs were straight and long.

Especially her deep blue eyes perfectly match the aesthetic preferences of otaku who admire blonde, blue-eyed aristocratic beauties.

However, when Claire takes control of this body, her eyes reveal a sharpness and majesty that is completely different from her delicate appearance, which adds a unique charm to her.

Of course, each login only grants half an hour of game time, and Claire doesn't intend to waste time playing Gold Miner on this body during that time.

He wasted a lot of his time yesterday on Elena and Prince Alvin.

Now that we're back in the city, we should naturally do some things we didn't have time for yesterday.

After changing her clothes, Claire instructed Anna, the maid in front of her, "Take me to the study, to the Marquis of Rost's study."

Lia didn't have much information about her father's study.

She only has a few memories of visiting the study a few times when she was a child, but she hasn't been there since she grew up. Of course, this is also because Lia and her father, Marquis Rost, are not close, just like they met on a forum.

So much so that Claire doesn't even know where the study is now, and needs the maid in front of her to lead the way.

A hint of surprise flashed in Anna's eyes: "The study? Miss, that's usually where the master handles business, and nobody is allowed to enter casually..."

"I'm an outsider? No matter how low my status is in this family, my bloodline is still that of the Rost family. Who do you think you are, calling me an outsider?"

Claire gave her a cold glance and brandished the whip in her hand.

The maid Anna tensed up immediately and took a half step back.

Looking at the maid who still needed some instruction, Claire continued, "I know very well that you are Mara's spy planted next to me."

"I'm keeping you alive now only because if I kill you, that woman will definitely send someone even dumber or more troublesome."

"So you'd better behave yourself, understand?"

Anna immediately lowered her head upon hearing this: "Yes, I understand. Please come with me."

She dared not ask any more questions and obediently led the way.

I finally breathed a sigh of relief.

On the corridor leading to the study, Claire chatted casually: "How many generations of my 'good father' is the current Marquis Rost? How is the family doing these days?"

"Which generation? Miss, don't you remember your ancestors?"

The maid Anna looked at the young lady beside her with a strange expression, and then she was whipped.

Anna's back burned and her shoulders trembled slightly as she answered, "If the young lady is asking whether the Rost family was originally just a baron..."

“I’m asking about the new empire,” Claire interrupted.

That is, after the church declared him dead, and the empire was controlled by the church and a puppet was installed.

The books I saw in the Royal Academy library yesterday didn't record what happened after that; they only recorded the period before he became emperor.

It's obvious that the church is brainwashing and glorifying itself.

"Oh, oh, after the evil god emperor Claire was purified by the church, the first Marquis of the Rost family held a very high position, being the most trusted nobleman of the royal family at the time. But the second Marquis..."

The following events were almost identical to the accounts of the traitors recorded in Claire's previous life's history.

The church supported the ascension of a new queen, who was an illegitimate child born from Claire's sister-in-law's affair, with no royal blood whatsoever.

She was also Prince Alvin's grandmother. Although the Rost family was highly valued in the early days of the new empire, the church and the puppet royal family obviously could not rely on him alone.

Therefore, the church and the puppet royal family successively supported other nobles to serve them, and of course, they also intended to make those nobles compete and confront the Rost family.

When the second generation was updated, the Rost family, which consisted of traitors from the previous dynasty, began to form a clear circle with the promoted nobles and was gradually squeezed and suppressed.

The Rost family has now reached its third generation, which is the generation of Leah's father.

The saying "wealth doesn't last three generations" is perfectly exemplified in the Roosevelt family.

After all, the first generation of the Rost family was single-mindedly striving for the prosperity of the family, and they chose to side with the stronger in exchange for wealth and glory, based on the principle of prioritizing interests.

Although the second generation faced exclusion from other newly emerging nobles, they still considered themselves to be meritorious contributors to the new empire and still enjoyed some of the benefits of being founding heroes.

However, the Rost family had already fallen into decline by the third generation.

The power structure of the new empire has become entrenched, and while the Rost family retains its marquess title, it has been relegated to the margins.

Lia's father, the third Marquis of Rost, faced daily bills piling up on his desk and ever-increasing gold coin expenses.

Unfortunately, he was a marginal figure in the aristocratic circles of the new empire, working as a lowly tax collector with no chance of turning his life around.

At this point, the Rost family no longer cared about fighting; they only wanted to survive.

Based on the memories of the maids Anna and Lia, Claire roughly understood that the current Marquis Rost was just a wage slave, working from nine to five every day but not earning much money.

The Rost family has been living off their past glories for a long time, and now those glories are almost gone.

It's no wonder that stepmother Marquise Mara and stepsister Elena were so concerned about Lia's engagement to Prince Alvin. Their family had fallen on hard times, but now they could find a good man for her to marry.

Then, by leveraging the royal family's connections, they can revive their family.

Haha, that's typical pig-brain thinking.

"Young Miss, this is the Marquis's..."

Just as the maid Anna stopped and said this to Claire,

The study door opened from the inside.

A man dressed in luxurious clothes, with disheveled hair and a pale complexion, appeared before them.

Chapter 13 Tax Collection! Heavy Taxes Are a Must

The heavy, carved oak door to the study creaked open from the inside.

A figure appeared in the doorway, bumping right into Claire (Leah) and Anna who were about to reach out to open the door.

The man was about forty years old, dressed in a nobleman's everyday clothes made of luxurious material but with an outdated style and even some wear on the cuffs.

He had blond hair similar to Lia's, but it was already gray and unkempt, combed haphazardly back, which couldn't hide his dejected look.

The man's face was a bloodless, ashen white, with deep eye bags and downturned corners of his mouth, bearing the weariness of being eroded by trivial matters and pressure over a long period of time.

Those eyes, almost identical to Lia's, were a deep blue, cloudy and dull, as if shrouded in a lingering gloom, devoid of any divine light.

It was that face; Claire immediately recognized the person in front of her.

This face bears a striking resemblance to the traitor from a hundred years ago who used the "Guardian's Peeping" to open the magical barrier of the royal capital and bring the church in.

This was the first time Claire had met the heir of the Rothschild family in a hundred years.

However, compared to the initial anger Claire felt upon seeing the 'Rost family', he was now relatively calm.

Where was even a trace of the shrewdness and sharpness of the opportunistic traitor from years ago? His bloodshot eyes revealed only exhaustion and weariness.

This grandson is no match for his grandfather; the third Marquis of Rost looks like a drowned rat.

The Rost family nowadays doesn't need to be able to kill someone with a single kick, which saves Claire some effort.

"What are you doing here?" Marquis Rost's unfocused gaze swept over Leah and Anna, his brows furrowing habitually, his voice tinged with impatience.

His attitude towards Lia has always been like this.

His eldest daughter, who had no talent and no social skills, was completely useless to the Rost family.

A political marriage seems to be her only value, but now, compared to Lia, her second daughter Elena seems to be much closer to Prince Alvin.

Claire, controlling Leah's body, spoke in a flat tone as if she were saying, "It's a nice day," "Just taking a stroll."

“Is that so?” Marquis Rost frowned.

He was too lazy to investigate further and didn't want to waste time on Liya.

"Don't wander around if you have nothing to do, you're in the way." With that, he shoved Lia, who was standing in front of him, aside without any politeness.

Claire scoffed disdainfully at the man who left without looking back.

Incompetent people always like to pretend to be very busy.

However, this saved a lot of trouble. Since the Marquis of Rost cared nothing for Lia and had no suspicion of his eldest daughter, the study door was not locked.

Claire easily pushed open the study door and went inside.

Anna hesitated for a moment, then followed her inside and carefully closed the door.

The room was spacious, with tall bookshelves reaching the ceiling, crammed with books and file boxes with various leather covers, but many bookshelves were noticeably empty, covered in a thin layer of dust.

A large mahogany desk stood by the window, piled high with scattered documents, open ledgers, opened letters, and used ink.

The curtains were made of thick, dark red velvet and were half-open.

The sunlight streaming into the study created a space that was half shadowy and half bright.

Anna watched with some unease as Miss "Lia" opened the drawer without any hesitation and took out a large pile of letters that were clearly from the Marquis of Rost.

Claire glanced at the few open letters.

The letters mostly contained information about business dealings and flattery with other nobles, but from the seals on the sealing wax and the contents of those letters, Claire was able to get a rough idea of ​​the power structure of the new empire.

Then, his gaze fell on a document with ink still wet.

This is probably why the Marquis of Rost has been so busy lately.

Claire glanced at the contents of the document and almost burst out laughing in exasperation.

Simply put, the church could no longer maintain its facade.

Previously, the church used the slogan of redeeming the common people who were ruled by Claire, the evil god emperor, so it did not take any major actions after sealing Claire.

But now, a hundred years later, the Church has completely taken control of the empire.

Although they had already started to siphon money and exploit people little by little before this, levying a 11% tax.

In this anime-style bishoujo game, the tithe is a voluntary donation; the Goddess Church should at least have some shame.

But clearly, the tithe alone was no longer enough for the Church, and now the Church was preparing to levy new taxes on the people of the new empire under various pretexts.

As a minor official in the new empire's finance ministry, the Marquis of Rost was responsible for coming up with ideas.

However, the ideas he came up with were a bit silly.

"What do you mean by selling church-used items to believers? Are you treating them like fools?" Claire curled her lip as she looked at the Marquis of Rost's proposals.

"It's not like we're selling lunchboxes made from black stockings or worn high heels."

"And there's this thing about everyone going to church having to wear the same clothes, or else there'll be a clothing tax."

"That's it? The new empire has returned to its original state. Most of the nobles are a bunch of idiots who inherit their fathers' positions. This is the consequence of not implementing the imperial examination system."

Although I know that this Marquis Rost wants to curry favor with the church, he's not exactly a genius.

How can someone like that be a marquis? Isn't he just a complete incompetent fool?

The other nobles were similar; their correspondence with the Marquis of Rost also revolved around ideas such as forcibly raising funds to build a statue of the goddess.

"Isn't the church good at healing magic? Then they can sell healing magic insurance! The first month's payment would be a sum of gold coins that ordinary people could afford. Then, the church would receive a few gold coins each month as a renewal."

"In the future, if you get injured, you will be able to receive priority treatment with healing magic, and the treatment cost will be reduced. However, once you receive treatment, the magic insurance for the next treatment will be doubled."

“This sustainable model is so good. We can even collect some kind of funeral tax, and the dead need to ask church people to pray for them.”

"What about indulgences? That's a traditional church skill..."

Claire closed the file, let out a sneer, and tossed it onto the table.

He had already experienced Revolution once in this second world, except that this world had magic, and there was a saintess who seemed like a true goddess descending to earth.

Otherwise, he could have easily conquered the Western Sea; back then, he raised an army with just the slogan "Kill the nobles and distribute the land."

Anna, standing to the side, felt terrified upon hearing his words.

What healing magic insurance? That thing is too nascent.

Originally, someone like her wouldn't have the money to go to church to receive healing magic, but if there really was such a thing as 'healing magic insurance,' then she and many other commoners could also enjoy healing magic.

But that's the scariest part. What used to be a scheme to prey on wealthy nobles is now a scheme to prey on all commoners.

Initially, you have to pay money for healing magic, but the cost doubles after you receive healing magic once.

In the end, people will be afraid to seek treatment for minor illnesses, and even if they do seek treatment for serious illnesses, they won't be able to afford the doubled cost of healing magic insurance. As a result, most people will not only be unable to receive healing magic treatment as before, but will also have to spend their savings in vain.

Isn't this just luring people in to kill them?

There were also things like funeral taxes and indulgences, terms Anna had never heard of before, but that didn't diminish how terrible these taxes were.