Chapter 166 – Remaining Funds (3)

At that moment, a guillotine entered the square.
It seems they have been overfished since the last riot and are being put to good use.
When I twisted my body sideways for a moment to avoid blocking my path, someone called me from the side.

“Let’s do something, Louis.”
“Bill?”
“Louis is the only one who can appease the matriarch’s anger. If this continues, the head of the family will be a tyrant who will go down in history and will be on the list of heirs.”

So does that mean he goes from being a little lord to a little tyrant?
Darling’s anger gauge was soaring through the sky as he crossed his legs and snorted.
As someone who has seen her for nearly ten years, it was clear that her former friend had made a mistake in pleading her innocence by citing her small stature.
In the first place, a person must guard his mouth well before he dies.

“Hmm, do I really need to appease you? “It seems like it’s good to relieve stress sometimes.”

For me, the thing I shouldn’t touch the most is the canteen, but for Darling, it’s something to do with her height.
I didn’t want to hang there together.

“Didn’t you have business with that alchemist?”
“That’s true, but…”
“If you’re having a hard time, I’ll tell you how. Just go ahead and say something.”

Bill gave me a little advice in a whisper.
Regardless of whether it was truly persuasive, it was advice that clearly revealed its intention.

“It’s too blatant to say it to me.”
“Then you don’t like it?”
“It’s not really like that, but…”
“Good, I would appreciate it if you could go and pay some attention. “He wasn’t that sensitive before, but he started getting angry a lot about a month ago.”

“I guess you’re disturbed by the arrival of winter,” Said Bill, smiling bitterly.
I also know why Darling gets on his nerves every winter.
However, a month ago, there was something else to point out.
Just before the Grand Duke’s meeting was held, Caroline’s identity was discovered and she was interrogated in the student council room.
Darling was definitely there.

— Are you by any chance friendly with the saint?
— Caroline? What… Yes.
— Then she will be sad if something bad happens to her.

Her meaningful words to me during her festival flashed through her mind.
Darling probably knew that Caroline was the one who spread her evil spirit before Erzébet did.
Information inside Parencia will be the first to come into her hands as the lord.

But she did not condemn the owner of her demon statue for causing the death of her own parents.
If she had simply handed it over to Erzhebet, she may have been intending to punish her according to the laws of the land.
But even when I protected Caroline, Darling did not stop me.
She just glared at her saint with her sharp eyes.

“Luis?”
“… Okay.”

In the end, she saved Caroline——the enemy’s henchman.
Just because I wanted to.

I walked around the installed guillotine and headed toward the front of the temporary building used as a temporary courtroom.
The soldiers stood guard with their spears, but they stepped aside at the gesture of Bill’s hand, who soon followed them.

“Hmm? Store owner, it’s been a while. “Did you have a good time visiting the Baltic Mountains?”

She knew my schedule thoroughly, as if she had heard it directly from someone else.
I definitely don’t remember saying that I would be attending the Grand Duke’s meeting, but did someone tell me about it?

Instead of answering, I climbed the creaky stairs and approached Darling’s side.
Kano’s dumbfounded expression was even more worth seeing from above.

“Hmm, Viscount?”
“Why are you doing that?”

It’s not difficult.
Like Bill said, I didn’t really mean to lie to save Kano.
After catching her breath, she bent down and spoke in a slightly trembling voice, close to the ear of Darling, who was expressing doubts.

“I also really like short women.”

***

Parenzia is under attack.
It was a reaction as if time had stopped for a moment, like a president hearing a report from his chief of staff.
Fortunately, the matter I heard about wasn’t that serious of a problem?
It only took about five seconds for Darling’s eyes to slowly blink again.

“Ha…”

She did not change her attitude at all and showed a calm demeanor.
Surprisingly, there was no behavior like he was shy or kicked my shin.

“Did Bill tell you to say that?”
“Yes?”
“That’s it. “She is not a great person who would listen to you, so it would not be wrong to infer that she is not lying in what she says.”

Widely!
Darling, who threw the document in his hand on the table, immediately stood up.
Afterwards, the executives of Ruhilen, those involved in the trial, and all the soldiers sitting in the courtroom stood up and showed respect.
A true scene that makes you realize that she is truly the lord of Parenzia.
Darling spoke to the administrator wearily.

“I was upset recently and made a mistake. “Let the criminal receive compensation commensurate with the amount of damage in accordance with the law.”
“Yes, I understand!”
“Can the carriage leave right away?”
“That’s right.”
“Then let’s go. “Because winter is busy.”

As she was about to leave, she quickly turned around and stood in front of me, raising her head.
Suddenly, it occurred to me that this difference in eye level had not changed for a very long time.

“Was the problem solved last time through her own consideration?”
“Caroline? Now…”
“Shh, you don’t even know how to choose time and place. “There’s a lot I want to say, but we’ll make an appointment later.”

Darling said, glancing sideways at Kano, who was shocked by being informed of her enormous amount of compensation.

“Store owner, whatever your taste, I don’t particularly like the look of this place.”
“…”
“Even so, it’s better than not liking it at all, so that’s it. “If you need that alchemist, feel free to hire him.”

Darling hands me the contract with Kano and leaves.
As for Caroline, I couldn’t help but ask why she supported me so much.

“Why are you helping me like this?”

Wearing a red cape that signified her third year, and scarlet hair that was even brighter than that, she said this as she got into her carriage.

“Because you are the only family left.”

***

“Thank you, Louis! “Thanks to you, I survived!”

Her alchemist, Cano Lérigier, was amazed that her friend was living such a successful life.
She was once so talented that she was even invited to the Royal Alchemy Society, but now she is penniless, running a workshop in Farencia.
However, Luis, who had been living in a shabby house, had suddenly become the owner of the richest land in Farencia.
She couldn’t even look back at the times she had asked herself what kind of family Roshyar was.

“Okay, help me with something.”
“Of course you should! What? “Would you like me to make some reagent?”

His awesomeness was even more evident when he was invited to his canteen beyond the main gate of the Academy for the first time.

“Oh my god… Is this a magic cube? These days, it’s hard to find a place in the commercial district where supplies are piled up and sold in case of a war…”
“I got it for a reasonable price. “I’m close with the chairman here.”
“If you are the chairman of the academy… Yunhoegong?”

She swallowed her saliva and cringed, but a moment later she encountered something even more surprising.

“Che, iron dog… ! Nonsense. Are you really thinking of saying that you are friends with Goliath? … !”
“That’s not it… Anyway, this is what I will entrust to you.”

Lewis points to a fairly messy basement floor and asks for help digging.
Behind the cracked floor was a small stone monument covered with cloth, which Kano carefully inquired about.

“What’s inside?”
“I can’t tell you that, you just have to tell me how. “It was buried quite deep, so it was difficult to get it out on my own.”
“Hmm…”

According to Lewis, it was impossible to work carelessly on that land because it was surrounded by a terrible level of defensive magic.
At that time, a good idea occurred to Kano’s head.

“The thing that immediately comes to mind is, like you said, enchanting the pickaxe with the same magic and pouring acid in it. I can prepare both at the workshop and it doesn’t take long. By the way, Louis.”
“Huh?”
“There is a better way than that.”

She said, pointing her finger at the floor of her basement.

“There must be a sewer down here, right? “I think it would be much easier if we dug up from there.”
“How did you know that?”
“I told you to live with some interest in the world. It’s been a while since the newspapers covered the fact that graduate students were dabbling in black magic. “It’s strange that they didn’t know that their base was right down here.”
“Hmm…”
“Or you could explode a bomb. “You won’t have to worry about your house collapsing because it’s not on top of a store.”

From what I heard, he seems to be close with the academy’s chairman, Lehel, so it would be easy to give him permission.
Kano looked at the contract in Lewis’s hand and smiled inwardly.
It was better than she thought, as she was able to easily write off the amount of money she owed to Ruhilen Merchants, which was a great thing for her.
But–

“No.”
“What?”

Lewis shook his head resolutely.

“You can’t sell from the bottom. And you should use the weakest corrosive liquid possible.”
“Then the construction period…”
“Please. “I’m going to sell it myself anyway, not someone else.”
“…”

The client’s demands have become a bit more stringent.
Looking at Lewis’s determined expression, she didn’t see any room for negotiation.
But it wasn’t something she couldn’t do, so in the end she nodded her head hesitantly.

“Okay. “Give me a pickaxe first.”

***

“What is the scope of evacuation this year?”
“All the way to observation post number 4.”
“It’s wider than last year. What happened to the monitoring crystal balls used during field training?”
“Most of them have reached the end of their useful life and are disconnected. “Communication magic doesn’t provide good fuel efficiency.”

In front of the west gate of Parencia, Darling watched the dark forest.
The western forest, filled with karma and filled with naturally created dungeons, was a dangerous area overrun with monsters every winter.
So every year, the number of monsters was determined, the forest was burned to the extent that it did not provoke them, and entry was prohibited until spring.
Of course, she knew now that the word ‘natural’ was wrong.

“What happened to the investigation team dispatched after the field training?”
“I searched everywhere for the ‘doll’ you mentioned, but I couldn’t find it.”
“Prepare diesel oil and fire extinguisher. “We’re also letting the newly selected recruits participate this time.”
“… The head of the family. Do you want to go in person this year too?”

Bill sent a worried look to Darling, who was watching everything from the last lookout post every year when the western forest was burned.

“As you saw in the summer, it is dangerous this year. In particular, guard post number 4 is located so deep that it cannot be compared to the hut used during field training…”
“Bill.”

Darling’s sharp words were heavier than the mace that crushed the knight’s shield without mercy.
She did not compromise with anything when it came to the forest.

“No matter how war is coming to the continent, it has nothing to do with Parenzia.”
“…”
“Rather, this is the war you have to fight every year.”

Immediately after burning the forest is the only moment when humans can freely explore the land of monsters.
If even a single piece of bone were found under a burnt old tree, she would run faster than anyone else, cutting through the remaining flames.
Bill couldn’t stop her.

“All right. So just in case…”
“I’m done with being a store owner. Aren’t you busy?”
“But…”
“I checked a while ago and saw that it had increased again.”

Darling was convinced when he heard that Lehel’s evaluation had changed when he returned to the Academy immediately after the Grand Duke’s meeting.

“He already has too much to protect. “Compared to that, how simple he himself is.”

The only person I want to protect is Louis.
I didn’t want to drag him into the western woods where I didn’t know what could happen.
Of course, this was also due to the relatively diminished sense of crisis as nothing had happened for over a decade.

Bill, on the other hand, sighed deeply into her.
When she finds out the truth, what kind of feelings will she have towards Lewis?
He simply did not have the confidence to handle his future self facing that situation.

“First, try to pick a day with light winds. The rest after that…”

Tuk!

At that moment, a shabby traveler passed by the merchants who were passing through the west gate.
However, when the horse suddenly tumbled, she was startled and collided with Darling.
Both people were in trouble, but it was Haengja who got up first and left.
It was hard to see her face because of the hood, but her appearance through the moonlight looked very exotic.

“How dare you, my lord… ! “Stop!”
“Done.”

In Fenheim, it was a serious crime for a commoner to harm a noble.
The punishment was even harsher for beggars or strangers.
Just as one of her soldiers was about to stop her, Darling stopped him.
Even today, I was swept away by a sharper mood than usual and didn’t I almost send someone away?

“Leave it alone. “I wasn’t seriously hurt.”

Darling decided to let the woman from a foreign country go.
It was a rumor among merchants that a small act of kindness shown to a traveler could later yield great benefits.

Darling continued to look at her back as she walked out of her sight.
Right before she disappeared among the crowd, her steps were heading towards Parenzia Academy without any deviation.