In short, if you're looking to read this to get a sense of Economics, Finance, or Stewardship, don't bother. This is because of two things. One, the author is spending far too much time on s*upid "comedy".

An example this is from (c2 part2), the Main Character is Kouta and Noel is a Duchess escorting him back to her territory:

Of course, this is a misunderstanding that lasts the ENTIRE CHAPTER (Name a more common combination, a JP LN, and misunderstandings). This is not due to the unpolished translation because this lasts for an entire chapter.

The Main Character is a former Japanese salaryman, a banker. A 26-year-old man should be fully capable and mature enough to cut her off and calmly explain that she's misunderstood him. But no, we've got to have increasingly wild delusions continue, in the name of... comedy? Romance? I can't tell.

Speaking of bankers, as someone who was an Investment Banker, they're one of the better career choices to pick for this type of Finance-related story. With expertise in raising capital and a good understanding of finance, they would be an excellent choice to help a Kingdom out of a jam.

The problem is that the author makes the main character smart by making all of the characters around him s*upid.

Noel, the aforementioned Duchess, is thinking of ways to raise money for the development of her fief. They're deeply in debt and need cash to pay off their debt and invest in new development.

The solution of just selling some of her stuff never occurred to her. It's not because of reluctance, because when Kouta brings it up, she immediately agrees to sell them. (c2 part8)

So instead of the main character looking smart by coming up with an unorthodox way to raise cash, it just makes the Duchess look like an abject moron for not considering that in the first place.

Instead of having the Duchess in trouble after already selling off most of her noble heirlooms, which would reflect that she cares deeply about her people and that she's actively trying, she instead just continues to let her country rack up Debt. Her Duchy's main source of "revenue" is borrowing money. (c2 part8)

So you see how the fact that the main character comes in, and then asks her to sell off her stuff, doesn't make him look smart but makes the girl look like an absolute dumbass instead.

Another example comes in the same chapter. The Main character asks how their Duchy brings in money for real (i.e. Not loans), and she responds by describing their current tax regime (c2 part8)

This is what is known as a poll tax, or, if you prefer something more descriptive, a head tax. This is a perfectly reasonable way to collect taxes and was widely used throughout history.

Her objection here is in line with one of the possible solutions, to raise taxes. She brings up how the tax rate is relatively low compared to other places. I would shut her down by saying that it doesn't really matter how much the tax rate is elsewhere, because other places aren't in crippling debt.

But what does our "smart" main character come up with? Well, he needs to end the chapter on a cliffhanger, so:

I didn't add that one line there. The author deliberately chose to milk this out with dramatic pause and narration. Anyone with even half a brain cell could see this is a s*upid idea, so what do I see in the next chapter?

Okay, I'm assuming he's aiming to introduce another type of tax to raise more money, which is good, but there was no need to abolish the previous tax when you are in crippling debt and need every cent. The author could've just had the line right then and there, and we would've lost nothing except the other characters' justifiably shocked reactions to an utterly s*upid idea.

The novel then spends the next 1000 words talking about how taxation systems work. First by writing about the fairness and disadvantages of flat tax systems, and how a progressive tax system would be better:

Well, a progressive tax does result in collecting more money from those that are successful, but there's a problem if your area has no rich people in the first place.

And we can't get away without comparisons to Japan (because of course! The Japanese government, with its 300 Debt-to-GDP ratio is an EXCELLENT example of a country to use to get out of Debt) :

This entire paragraph is wrong. Yes, a progressive tax system leads to people who earn more money to pay taxes, but are done in tax brackets with increasing rates. For example, someone who earns 1, 950, 000 Yen this year, will pay 5% taxes, or 97, 500. If he earns 19, 500, 000 instead, he only pays the higher tax rate of 40% on the 1, 500, 000 belonging to that bracket. This means he pays 5, 004, 000 in taxes. So his initial claim about increasing taxes by tenfold is wrong, because it isn't a flat tax.

But also, he's wrong about the disincentive to work too! People still make more money the harder they work! This is a point that a trust-fund rich kid would make while keeping wages low for his workers, that he's actually helping them out by giving them lower wages so they don't have to pay more in taxes.

Talk about shooting yourself in the foot. The more income you make, the money you have left over after essential expenses, which is what people are really concerned about.

He finally concludes with (ch2 part9) :

That's right, we've just spent 1000 words reading about taxes, just to end up giving tax breaks for the rich, which is a great idea when you're in crippling debt and right back where we started.

Additionally, there's another problem:

The companies who have the capital and resources to begin expansion into an underdeveloped province are those that are rich enough to not mind the loss on investment, due to a low cost-of-capital.

Those are the same companies he's going to be targeting with a progressive tax, because again, they're income-rich.

Now, I get the intent he's going for. He's going to lower taxes so that companies come in, set up and earn money. Then, once they're settled and earning money, he can collect more taxes on them with a progressive tax rate.

The problem with this policy is that the companies know it too. And it's in fact a plot point all the way back in c1 part3:

So eventually, we reach the real solution. Blackmail the prime minister with the main character's presence as a Hero to have the Queen give them publicity.

You could've just led with that instead of the massive detour about taxes.

This is what I'd like to call "trying to look smart by explaining concepts while others ooh and aah about it, but actually has no effect on the story". It's a bad way to write about this sort of thing.

In short, the novel tries to make its main character smart but ends up in the usual place of making everyone else look s*upid instead.

It's filled with s*upid Japanese Novel cliches like rapid-fire misunderstandings. The main character is somehow very bad at explaining himself. This is despite him being a banker, whose job it is to explain financial products to clients.

It takes far, far too long for the character to arrive at the actual solution, and wastes everyone's time in the process. If I wanted to read about progressive taxes, I could have just opened up a Wikipedia article.

Except the main character is also wrong about his explanations too, which is a death sentence for a novel about finance and economics.

I have little faith that the author will be able to handle any of the other topics properly, those being stock prices, debt defaults, currency collapse and failed derivatives, even ignoring the problem of "what, Stock exchanges don't happen until the 1600s, how do they exist in what is presumably a medieval world?", I don't have enough faith in the author to accurately model and then solve these difficult topics, and what's left over is cliche and trite content.

I bet, this gonna be great story.

At first, the male lead is too calm as a summoned person, whether he's too smart or his character is really a calm person. But the story so far turned out unexpectedly. Male lead also is a normal human, no OP magic or skills, yet his head that full of his work in earth (as a banker) able to assist a fief lord slowly to understand what is important to improve the fief. It just started, though.

Anyway, I am really looking forward the continuation... more>> for this novel!

*may change my review if there are more chapters <<less