It was a natural question, since I would have plainly seen those rooms myself when I lived in the Lansval mansion.
“You could say it was consideration, so that Dona could have her own way of taking revenge.”
After all, each person would be receiving their own share of karma. And then,
“I already filed a report about the hot spring demonic beast corpse incident in Beksy, remember? I also did not want to officially put my name on Lansval-related matters anymore.”
Rastan smiled faintly, as if he understood.
“Thanks to that, we were able to search the Lansval estate.”
That was right. With suspicion of Husani alone, it would have been difficult to search an entire noble’s residence.
However, if there was suspicion of treason, every room could be searched, including the Head of the House’s office.
Of course, the mere fact of being investigated on suspicion of treason already meant that their life as nobles was essentially over. From now on, most nobles would try not to get involved with House Lansval in the slightest.
‘Of course, it’s not like they’ll be meeting other nobles on the social stage anymore.’
If by some chance they met not on a social stage but in prison, that would be good enough. At least they would still be alive.
***
When night came and I returned to my room and lay down on the bed, I suddenly thought of Ifrit.
‘Ah, right. He must be worried since I suddenly stopped contacting him.’
I had said I would contact him again, yet after that night, all contact had completely stopped.
Rastan hadn’t wanted it, so I had decisively discarded the communication device, but it was true that I felt a sense of regret.
‘I threw away such a convenient and useful magic tool so easily. That’s like a Korean throwing away their phone, isn’t it?’
Of course, it had been a device that could only be used to contact Ifrit, but it had been so long since I had used anything like that that my heart felt a little empty.
If I truly wanted to get in touch, I could probably ask Rastan or Raven to send at least a letter.
But while living under Rastan’s roof, I felt it would be rude to ask him to contact someone he disliked, so I decided to endure it.
‘I’m sorry, Ifrit. If something truly big changes in my situation, I will find a way to contact you then.’
It wasn’t that I particularly missed him.
I simply hoped that the man who had looked after me so much and worried about me wasn’t fretting too badly because I had suddenly disappeared.
The next morning, the Lansval estate was noisy from early dawn.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
“We are from the Security Department!”
Helga, who had already been awake early due to her light sleep, was startled and looked out the window.
Outside the main building’s front entrance, several men wearing the uniforms of the security department were indeed standing there, pounding on the door.
Helga hurried down to the first-floor hall in place of Gerald, who was sleeping sprawled out without a care, and watched from a short distance behind as the butler opened the front door.
“I am Randolph, the butler of House Lansval. What brings you here…?”
At that, the men pulled out their identification badges and spoke quickly.
“We are investigators from the security headquarters. Please cooperate with a search of the estate.”
Without giving the butler any chance to respond, they surged into the mansion.
The man who appeared to be the highest-ranking among them issued instructions.
“You two come with me to the family head’s office. You, the family head’s bedroom. You, take charge of the family members’ rooms. Randolph, was it? Guide them to the locations of the rooms.”
Helga, who had been watching from behind, stepped forward to block them, her tone full of disbelief.
“No, no matter how much you are investigators, are you not commoners? Are commoners really saying they will rummage through a noble’s estate however they please?!”
At that, the investigator who had been giving orders let out a small sigh, as if he had expected this, and pulled a piece of paper from his chest.
“This is a search and seizure warrant.”
As if even explaining it was a bother, he casually thrust the paper toward Helga. With trembling hands, she took the warrant and read it.
At the bottom of the document, which stated that “in order to investigate suspicions based on credible reports, seizure and search of the Lansval estate is hereby ordered,” the seal of the Head of the Security Department, Duke Blake, was stamped clearly.
Recalling Rastan’s frighteningly cold gaze, Helga let her hand drop limply.
In fact, this was precisely one of the reasons Rastan also held the position of Head of the Security Department.
Those who might have tried to oppose a decision by that department would, in most cases, meekly back down the moment they saw an official document bearing the seal of the formidable Duke Blake.
Confirming that Helga had lost the will to resist, the investigator immediately ordered his colleagues to proceed with the search.
And those who went to the Baron’s office quickly found a problem and let out a hollow laugh.
“…Ha, the entire room is purple.”
If the whole room had been so blatantly decorated as if coated in purple velvet, the rest was obvious.
Anticipating that today’s haul would be substantial, the corners of the investigators’ mouths curled upward into crooked smiles.
A short while later, an investigator who opened the double safe tucked into one corner of the office took out a medium-sized box.
It was the very box of gold coins that Count Krone had handed over for the annulment of the engagement.
“Did they stash away some impressive slush fund or something?”
Murmuring to himself as he opened the box, the investigator doubted his own eyes.
“What is this?”
The box was filled with small chunks of metal. Their color was a slightly pale gold, so at a glance they almost looked like gold coins.
The problem was that they had been made in exactly the same shape as real gold coins.
Because he was an investigator with considerable experience, he could tell at a glance the difference between gold coins made of pure gold and cheap alloys that merely looked somewhat gold-colored.
“Hah, were they even trying to circulate counterfeit currency?”
Watching from a distance as the investigator opened the box of gold coins, Gerald’s eyes widened.
‘Why are fake gold coins suddenly in there…?!’
Gerald had been driven out of his room and rushed to the office in his pajamas. Other investigators were already tearing apart his bedroom as well.
He was startled, but because the sharp-faced investigators blocked him, he couldn’t go in and had no choice but to watch the search from outside the office door.
When he had received that box, it had definitely been filled with bright yellow coins made of pure gold.
Unlike many commoners who had barely ever seen gold coins in their lives, he had handled money for years through the trading company. There was no way he could fail to recognize real gold coins.
And yet, back then, they had clearly been real.
Gerald blinked rapidly and rubbed his eyes over and over with both hands, but the color of the fake gold coins didn’t change.
“Uh, Investigator…!”
Most of the investigators were either second sons or younger from minor noble Houses, or of commoner origin. Under normal circumstances, Gerald would naturally have spoken to them casually, but he wasn’t in a position to do that now.
Putting on a servile smile, Gerald spoke in the most polite voice he could manage.
“That, when I received it, it was definitely real gold coins…”
However, as if there were no need to listen, the investigator coldly cut Gerald off mid-sentence.
“Give your statement at the headquarters. Anything you say now is completely useless.”
After thoroughly searching the Lansval estate for quite some time, the investigators secured a substantial amount of physical evidence.
Looking down at Gerald and Helga, who stood there with pale faces, they spoke bluntly.
“You will need to come with us to the headquarters immediately. For now, your charges are conspiracy to commit treason and circulation of counterfeit currency, and it looks like more will likely surface.”
Faced with charges far more serious than expected, Gerald and Helga stared with their eyes wide as if they might burst. Regardless, the investigator continued speaking as if it were nothing.
“Other investigators should be searching the Lansval Trading Company by now as well.”
“Ghk…?”
Gerald, who had been so focused on what was happening here that he hadn’t even thought about the trading company, gaped with his mouth hanging open.
By now, the investigator didn’tt even bother maintaining proper honorifics toward Gerald, who was all but confirmed as a criminal.
“If we search one place at a time, there is a risk you will try to destroy evidence, so there was an order from above to raid everything at once.”
Dragged to the headquarters of the Security Department almost against their will, the two members of House Lansval, especially Gerald, were subjected to intense interrogation.
There was already so much evidence secured from the residence and the trading company that there was no room for denial.
And the very next day, the incident dominated the front pages of every newspaper.
[Baron Lansval arrested on a total of seven charges, including conspiracy to commit treason!]
[Was House Lansval behind all the recent suspicious incidents?]
In the Prasen Empire, the number of drug addicts had been increasing over the past twenty or so years, emerging as a serious social problem.
However, as a result of the search of the Lansval Trading Company this time, it was revealed that they had been smuggling drugs in from abroad and distributing them within the Empire all along.
In other words, drug distribution had been a long-standing cash-generating operation of the Lansval Trading Company, passed down since the time of Gerald’s father.
In addition, there had been several incidents in the Capital in which substandard buildings collapsed, resulting in nearly a hundred people being killed or injured, and it was revealed that all of the defective construction materials used in those cases had been supplied by the Lansval Trading Company.
This incident immediately became a massive topic of public discussion.
