Episode 14
“What did you say?”
“He wants me to hand over everything he gave me—my wallet, my bag, all of it! Can you believe this? Unbelievable!”
Pedro raged, thrashing about, while Ishael’s mother, Lady Masa, bit her lip tightly, as if she was beginning to suspect something.
From behind the counter at the Bureau of Civil Affairs’ loan office, Lady Masa tore open an envelope.
And inside the envelope…
“My goodness! Even we received one of those filthy notices! No, wait—it’s an official summons!”
There was a difference between a warning letter and a notice.
A warning letter was simply a caution.
But a notice carried legal obligations, requiring actual compensation.
“Huh? A notice for damages? That can’t be sent without consent, can it?”
In Lady Masa’s hands was a lawsuit notice for damages sent by Ishael herself.
“Could it be… the ancient notice I received back then…!”
Masa and Pedro exchanged the letters they had received, frowning deeply.
Pedro muttered in disbelief,
“I can understand that for me, but under Imperial law, you can’t sue your own family for damages, right?”
Lady Masa furrowed her brow.
Soldika, however, spoke up.
“Besides, our sister is no longer part of our family.”
“What…?”
Unlike Masa and Pedro, Soldika was rather perceptive.
“She seems to have married someone else recently. So now she’s completely estranged from us.”
“What? She got married just after breaking up with me…!”
Even Lady Masa, rarely showing anger, clenched her fist tightly.
“This ungrateful child! I raised her, cherished her, took care of her, and this is how she repays us?”
“Haah!”
“I tried to do good things for her and the family, but this fool couldn’t see the bigger picture… ruined everything!”
In truth, it was difficult to say that Lady Masa had really raised Ishael.
Ishael had attended the academy on scholarships from a young age.
Even while studying, she managed to support her family financially.
But she had never cared about such realities.
What mattered to her was her family’s perception of “betrayal by the daughter.”
“Ishael! How could you betray your family so heartlessly!”
“Oh my, maybe our sister was deceived into a marriage? Perhaps blinded by a man…”
“That could be possible. Soldika, what should we do now?”
“Well, we’ll have to think about it. It seems troublesome without our sister…”
Ishael was the ugly duckling, while she herself was the beautiful swan.
Her sister had to make Soldika shine.
She soothed Pedro gently.
“Pedro, I know it bothers you when you see our sister.”
“Huh?”
“She’s not pretty, right? With those glasses and that messy hair… Not your aesthetic type, I suppose.”
Pedro reluctantly shook his head.
“It wasn’t that bad.”
“Really? Then help our sister get a divorce, Pedro!”
“How? Especially now that a notice like this has arrived!”
Unlike the past, when their sister had run away, Soldika had not acted excessively.
She had merely sent their mother to her side, allowing tears to flow.
A tender sister would return to the family.
This time, a similar approach would work.
“Ah, finally, we also need to check what kind of man her husband is.”
A crescent smile curved on Soldika’s lips.
“I’ll take care of that. He probably isn’t a proper man.”
The man who would meet their sister could hardly be impressive.
“He wouldn’t truly love her.”
Her smile bloomed like cherry blossoms in full.
“Who else would take our sister if not our family?”
“True, who else would accept Ishael?”
How she ended up married was unclear.
But the husband would soon discard her, just like everyone else who had crossed Ishael’s life in the past twenty years.
It didn’t matter.
If she married a good man, he would repay the sister’s debts.
A good outcome all around.
“I have a friend in the Imperial Palace. They’ll track our sister’s whereabouts.”
Her lips curved as if drawn perfectly.
“They’ll find out where she is and let you know, Pedro. And then… you know what to do next?”
“Start the seduction again, I suppose.”
She would come around. She always did.
Because she was Ishael.
The next morning arrived.
I went to the Knight Management Bureau as usual.
But… in our team’s mailbox was a letter from my family.
[Sister, come back. I was so worried that you might have been taken by a strange man… Why are you suing us for damages? We are family.]
I sneered, crumpling the paper in my hand.
“What is this? Even a dog can write a letter.”
Now that I had lived through death, it was clear.
To Soldika, I was merely a prop—the angel in the sushi restaurant, the gypsophila in a bouquet, the backdrop in a painting.
A tool to make her shine.
Of course, this was their attempt to persuade me.
I wasn’t yet a noble, hadn’t married a proper noble, and hadn’t prepared a dowry.
And now that the money source—me—was gone, they were inconvenienced.
“Really… unbelievable.”
I smirked.
I would never be victimized again.
Time passed quickly, and the weekend arrived.
Immanuel, the director of the current Housing Supply Bureau, arrived at the picnic site.
“Today, we have come with a perfect mission in this land.”
Beside him, the junior officers rubbed their fish-like eyes.
“Tsk, what’s with the sleepy faces?”
“Coming to work on a weekend morning for unnecessary tasks… Wow, no filter at all. Sorry.”
“Live passionately! Passion, passion, passion! Shout the slogan!”
The officers responded like dried-out fish.
“Passion, passion, passion…”
“Ah, well, back in my day…”
“We will correct ourselves.”
Immanuel narrowed his eyes.
“See that slogan on the placard? Not bad, right?”
[Hey! Couples are gathered! Fun! Picnic! Gagou!]
He looked proud.
The catchy phrase had been crafted with great effort.
Time that could have been spent enjoying a sweet lunch had been devoted to this.
Clearly, the answer was predetermined.
However…
“Wow, who made that? Terrible. So tacky.”
“…”
Immanuel silently downgraded the junior officer’s work evaluation.
Yes, Immanuel was a stickler.
He averted his gaze from an officer who only knew how to yawn.
Then he turned to Sorbonne, a junior officer who had volunteered for weekend work.
“How about you? Are you ready?”
“Yes! I’m fine.”
“Focus. Soon, the newlyweds will arrive.”
“It’s certainly a momentous occasion. Constructing a townhouse ourselves has always been the goal of our Housing Bureau.”
With the declining birth of genuine newlywed couples threatening the empire’s family-centered ideology, collaboration with the Welfare Bureau allowed the Supply Bureau to provide these townhouses specially for newlyweds.
Political calculation was also involved.
The Empire’s housing management was divided into two fields:
One, the Housing Management Bureau issuing rental permits.
The other, the Supply Bureau, providing public housing—Kanzelhaus—for commoners and impoverished nobles at reasonable rates.
Thus, the Housing Management Bureau had no direct control over public housing in the capital.
But the ambitious Immanuel was always eyeing supply operations.
Then one day…
“The number of newlyweds is decreasing! We must prevent this!” pleaded the Welfare Bureau.
Immanuel seized the opportunity.
Thanks to this, the townhouses for newlyweds could be officially supplied under the Housing Bureau’s name.
How could today not be a momentous day?
“From humble beginnings come great endings!”
Sorbonne awkwardly clapped.
“Our purpose is clear, right?”
“To verify that all gathered are genuine newlyweds.”
To ensure they weren’t ‘contract couples’ and to closely observe their interactions.
“Yes, exactly. That’s why we arranged this picnic, a bold move.”
One junior officer, still dazed, gave a look that said, ‘I know it’s bold.’
Another officer’s expression slipped, and his performance evaluation was lowered again.
Then, at that moment…
“Look! The newlyweds are arriving!”
Immanuel’s hawk-like eyes focused on the approaching figures.
He was slightly excited.
Being a workaholic still unmarried, he harbored a small romantic ideal.
‘Watching newlyweds being all lovey-dovey… this will be quite amusing… No, no.’
Clearing his throat, he carefully observed the approaching couples.
Yet, oddly, they kept a distant social spacing from each other.
