Chapter 005
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“So you must repay this debt immediately!”
The atmosphere in the drawing room was a mess.
“If you can’t give up the land, then give up your corpse instead!”
The person dealing with the Union Head was Lancie, Alpheus’s adjutant.
He strictly warned him to stop shouting for a start.
“Even if you do that, you won’t get a fair price for my corpse. My eardrums just went bad, you see…”
In truth, Lancie’s manner of speaking was excessively polite. He was not suited for this kind of verbal spat by nature.
When Alpheus led the mercenary group, Lancie was in charge of various administrative and financial affairs. Thus, the management of the household and the various administrative tasks of the Marquisate naturally fell to him.
The problem was that he had only been in this role for three days. To make matters worse, there wasn’t even a butler to hand over the duties.
“The repayment date written in the contract has already long passed! If you cannot repay it right now, I will take the land in the Erenta region listed here as collateral!”
There was no logic to refute the Union Head’s words. It was true that the repayment date had passed.
“Why are you being like this, really? That’s just a contract; you usually received the payment in winter!”
The Head Maid stepped forward and shouted.
Lancie was greatly angered by the phrase ‘it’s just a contract.’ He fiercely argued with the Head Maid, asking if that even made sense.
“Then did you write the contract just to practice your signature?”
Only after the words left his mouth did he realize the Head Maid was on his side. For the past three days, he had been thinking of her as the ‘opposing side that only talks nonsense.’
Because she spoke nonsense again, he had instinctively judged her to be on the opposite side.
Fortunately, Lancie’s anger-filled reprimand had no effect, as usual. It was instantly buried by the Head Maid’s loud voice.
“It was like this last year, two years ago, and three years ago! We wrote the same contract every year, so it’s only right to follow precedent!”
Lancie desperately held back from pointing out the error in her logic.
But the opponent did not hold back.
“That’s because we’ve been lenient with you until now! I told you the situation has changed! Because of the monster wave in the West, we’re at death’s door too!”
Lancie thought in agony, certain that his lord’s secret birth was nothing to be happy about.
‘If I’d known it would be like this, we should have kept it a secret.’
The Marquisate of Sayers was a founding family of the Empire, but it had grown increasingly impoverished until it reached this state.
After the funeral of the Marquis of Sayers three days ago, debt collectors arrived before the coffin was even buried.
‘Veron is our land now. Here is the loan document where the Marquis of Sayers put up the Veron region as collateral.’
‘W-what?’
‘Take note of this too. According to the contract here, the Marquis put up the Jezel shopping street as a penalty for breach of contract.’
Just like that, the lands of the Sayers fief were handed over one after another.
It was because of a clause in the contract stating, ‘Upon the death of either party, the contract shall be terminated due to the fault of the deceased.’
On top of that, the late Marchioness of Sayers had incurred large debts from the central bank.
The Marchioness’s extravagance had always been severe, but two years ago, when she sent Brisa to the Capital Academy, she had taken out another massive loan.
‘This debt isn’t a personal contract; it’s passed down to the child. Since the interest is enormous, it would be best to repay this immediately as well.’
‘For now, can I cover it with my private funds?’
‘It’s possible, but then you’ll have to pour almost everything in.’
‘So it means I have to return to being penniless. It’s fine. I’m still young.’
Alpheus actually had quite a bit of money saved from his successful mercenary life. However, as Lancie had warned, after paying off the debt, there was very little cash left.
‘Roughly speaking, the urgent fire has been put out, but the financial crisis remains, right?’
‘It’s not just a common financial crisis. Every second counts if we’re to feed the knights too. You’d better hurry to the Imperial Palace and get something.’
Alpheus had originally participated in the northern civil war as a mercenary.
However, he became comrades-in-arms with the Second Prince, ending the civil war together and receiving the title of ‘War Hero.’
The Second Prince highly valued Alpheus’s merit and said he would petition the Emperor for a Barony for him. They were on their way to the capital together for that purpose.
But it was then that it was revealed Alpheus was the hidden son of the Marquis of Sayers. Thus, he hurriedly attended the funeral and inherited the Marquisate.
‘What? I have a twelve-year-old sister? Then has the child become a total orphan? As soon as I receive the title of Marquis, I must embrace and protect her warmly like a mother hen.’
It was soon revealed that such a thought was also based on commoner values.
The existing servants of the estate all regarded him as ‘the son of a commoner who snatched away Lady Brisa’s title of Marquis.’
Before he could even feel that disregard, Alpheus headed for the capital.
‘Since I don’t need to receive a title anymore, it’ll be fine if I ask for it as compensation. The Second Prince will never be stingy to a comrade who shared his life on the battlefield.’
‘Then go quickly. The sooner you beg, the better.’
Alpheus thus headed for the Warp gate that night, leading his elite squad. Of course, until the very last moment, he worried about his newfound little sister.
‘Is there no other way? Brisa lost her father today; I don’t know if it’s right to leave her alone like this.’
‘There is a way for our knights to change careers to a bandit group and rob the central bank grandly. Since the Marquis just gave them a huge sum of money, the vault will be full tonight.’
‘I’ll be back soon.’
After seeing Alpheus off like that, Lancie remained at the estate and began looking through the documents.
‘The only land left now is just two places.’
The late Marquis of Sayers had kept exactly two places until the end.
‘The Olive Plain, where the first Marquis of Sayers supposedly planted olive trees himself… and the Erenta region by the river where Marang fish can be caught.’
Olives weren’t very profitable. It was because the quality of the harvested fruit was only mediocre.
Only the Marang fish catch brought in some money.
From the looks of it, it seemed that they had been procuring food by taking grain on credit from the western grain merchants from spring to winter, and then paying the bill with Marang fish in early winter.
‘No, then why was the contract written like this?’
Lancie wanted to cry.
‘You should have said you’d pay in early winter in the first place, so why was “immediate payment” written?’
The Union Head spoke as if he were being very lenient.
“Fine. You seem to feel wronged… so let’s do this. The grain bill from last winter, and the cost of the next month’s worth of grain… If you add it all up, we can call it even with the fishing rights for Erenta for five years.”
Lancie’s vision went dark.
Now that the war was over, even their valiant knights could not earn money. On top of that, the stored food was not sufficient. It wasn’t for nothing that Alpheus had been sent off in a hurry to bring back money.
‘But at this rate, the fief’s only meaningful source of income for five years will be gone…’
It was then.
A girl with flowing platinum blonde hair walked into the drawing room with a dignified stride.
“From now on, speak with me.”
It was Brisa, with a cold yet calm expression. By Lancie’s standards, she was the ‘spiritual pillar of the maids who talk nonsense.’
While Lancie stood frozen in surprise, the maid beside Brisa kicked his foot hard.
“Ack!”
When he glared to protest, the maid gestured with her chin. It meant to get out of the way.
H—how dare… a maid… the Marquis’s adjutant… like this…
Lancie protested fiercely, saying that such a kick could not be tolerated.
“Are you a jokgu player?”
In response, the maid glared and began to rotate her ankle in earnest, warming up.
In the end, Lancie stood up from his seat opposite the merchant, staggering. Brisa sat elegantly in that spot.
“My goodness.”
The maid muttered.
“You’ve been all the way to the backyard, yet there isn’t a single wrinkle in your skirt… You are amazing, My Lady.”
As expected.
Lancie once again realized that his judgment of the maids in this mansion was correct.
‘They have a free built-in function to say things that show zero awareness of the situation whenever they open their mouths…’
The leader they praised like a round song was Brisa.
So it was only natural that her appearance in such a crisis was not welcome.
However, Brisa calmly looked at the Union Head and asked:
“I’d like to know the market price for timber.”
…Timber, all of a sudden?
“Won’t the damage to the forests in the West be severe because of the monster wave too?”
There were no forests in the Marquisate, though?
