“Um, Baron, are you really okay?”
His attendant asked as he received the crystal ball that Baron Bjor had handed him.
“What do you mean?”
“Uh… what if that stupid guy blows everything up?”
“If that happens, all the plans we’ve laid out will just go to waste…”
“…Hahaha! Hoohoo… Puhaha! AHAHAHA!!!”
“Baron…?”
“Ah… Really, this naive friend. Do you really think that could happen?”
The attendant had merely offered advice for his master, but upon hearing that question, Baron Bjor burst into laughter as if he had just heard the greatest joke of the century.
“Sure, let’s say that pathetic pig has blown everything up. And, even though it’s unlikely, let’s pretend that the drunken idiot suddenly comes to his senses and actually brings this matter to court for a lawsuit. Who would believe that?”
“Who would believe the words of a lowly and foolish commoner? The bureaucrats of the Supreme Court? The Emperor? Don’t be ridiculous. If we say it’s not true, how can it be proven?”
“Even if he were to file a lawsuit, do you think that beggar of a count could afford the legal fees? And how long do you think a lawsuit would take? Even on the short end, it would take two to three years. Do you really think the Evergarden family, who have nothing to their name, could handle that for such a long time? No, I actually hope it happens. After all, even if the trial takes a long time, we’re sure to win, so it would be easier if we let some steam off before swallowing him whole. Hehehe…”
“Ah…”
As Baron Bjor continued to laugh, the attendant, who had been looking at him uneasily, felt all his worries vanish.
“Anyway, all we need to do is follow the blood trail left by a deer that we’ve caught. The final destination will be a deer that has exhausted itself and has fattened up.”
With that statement, Baron Bjor smiled.
“Umm… huh… Urrrgh!!!”
Common lifted his head with a strange scream, regaining consciousness.
“Wh-where is this…? I was definitely… the Count! The Count is…!”
Common, whose face was pressed against the cold stone floor, remembered his last moments before losing consciousness.
He had thought the Count was far away, but in an instant, he was right in front of him, blinking, and that thick fist appeared right in front of his eyes, a rather unpleasant experience.
“Are you awake?”
“Ma-master?!”
“The secret passage doesn’t just serve as a passage. There are many hidden rooms here and there; I wonder what purpose these rooms were made for?”
“Y-yes? Eek?!”
Freya appeared in the dimly lit center of the dark room, sitting on a creaking iron chair, with a candle burning brightly in front of her.
“Oh dear. This is cold and hard… If someone were tied to such a chair, they wouldn’t even be able to resist, would they?”
Freya was wearing her usual soft and gentle smile, but the iron chair she sat in was adorned with horrific chains and spikes, creating a dreadful image that did not suit her at all.
“M-ma-master! What on earth is going on…? I-I have no idea why you are acting like this!”
“Wow… and you still want to play dumb after coming this far? You’re really a crazy bastard.”
“C-count…!”
Common, bowing his head, tried to appeal to Freya, asking why she was capturing an innocent person, but when Dariann, who had been listening to the conversation, appeared with a smirk, sweat broke out all over Common’s face, enough to create a waterfall.
“Reason? Hey, you bastard! Don’t you really know what you did? Huh?”
“I-I was… so…”
“Document forgery and embezzlement. Just counting the biggest issues, it’s already a serious crime that could easily cost your neck and your family’s neck three times over.”
“That’s right! If we include the trivial stuff, how much would it increase?”
“It would likely increase to five times.”
“…That’s right! I could stack bacon high enough from your thick neck to reach the castle! You bastard!”
“Eek…!”
With Freya sitting in a chair that seemed to have ended the lives of more than a few people, listing out all the sins she had committed with a smile, and Dariann—especially with his fists—surrounding him, Common found himself with tears welling up in his impressive folds of fat.
“You don’t need to beat around the bush at this point, right? I’ll just get to the conclusion. What’s your relationship with Baron Bjor?”
“Uh… eh…?”
“What are you spacing out for? Huh? Just tell me!”
“Eek?!”
‘What? Did they already know that? How?! This is unbelievable…!’
However, Freya’s question pierced through him so simply that he momentarily lost his words.
He had thought they were merely discussing embezzlement, but they already knew about his connection with Baron Bjor.
“Now you know, right? Baron Bjor has no intention of saving you. I don’t know what promise Baron Bjor made to you, but… it seems that’s already gone down the drain.”
“If you confess everything openly now, I’ll spare your life. Ah, of course, in one piece.”
“But if you don’t speak, you know what happens, right?”
“Um… uh… R-really… will you forgive me?”
Freya’s whisper felt like a lifeline thrown to him as he fell into a pit of despair, so Common looked up at Freya with a glimmer of hope.
But.
“Forgiveness isn’t an option.”
“Eh?”
“Logically speaking, did you really expect to be forgiven after causing such a big mess? Even if you confess everything now, I’ll at least ensure that you’re punished in a ‘humane’ way.”
“Um… if I may ask what that ‘humane’ way is…”
“I don’t think you’re in a position to ask that right now… unless, of course, you’d prefer not to know?”
“Ah.”
“Surely you won’t die, will you? Will you? So why don’t we slowly start opening that stubborn mouth of yours? My patience is wearing thin.”
Common felt as if he had grabbed a lifeline that was rotten and about to break.
He had no doubt that if he refused this ‘humane’ option, they would definitely slaughter him like a pig at a butcher’s shop.
“I’ll tell you everything.”
‘Forget it, Baron Bjor. Let’s make that bastard suffer.’
“I knew you’d say that. You’re good at calculating since you’re someone who handles money, right?”
With that thought, Common began to slowly open his mouth, feeling that he might as well pull at the hem of Baron Bjor’s pants after being abandoned.
“Very well, Ma’am. Here’s the milk tea.”
“Thank you, Gordon. Hmm? It smells lovely.”
After listening to all of Common’s confessions, Freya briefly locked him in the mansion’s prison—she had made suitable excuses to the soldiers—and returned to her office to accept the fragrant milk tea offered by Gordon.
“I wouldn’t recommend adding anything to the black tea, but considering the late hour, I’ve added some warm milk.”
“Now that you mention it, I haven’t eaten yet. Have the children finished their meals?”
“Yes, the young master and young lady have finished their dinner, and the head of the household is currently downstairs having a late meal. I’ll instruct them to prepare one more serving.”
“No, it’s fine. This is enough for me.”
Even back when she was in the modern world, she was a light eater, and after entering Freya’s body, she sometimes found herself surprised that she could barely eat half of what she used to.
“…Baron Bjor. You’ve casually committed quite the charming act.”
The forged loan documents using Common, and along with that, the baron’s eyes were rampant throughout this mansion.
This situation was far too serious to compare to a mere corporate merger.
‘It’s ridiculous; no matter how hard they try, these fools are probably just going to end up executed for treason against the empire.’
However, even in this situation, Freya could only let out a hollow laugh.
According to Felix, the downfall of the Evergarden family was not going to be caused by these forged documents or the light of the pile, but rather due to sheer stupidity.
Since the cause of self-destruction came from within, even without putting in any effort, the territory without its master would not belong to him anyway.
However, with Freya and her family currently possessing the bodies of the owners of this family, that conclusion would not come to pass.
Ironically, because of this, the actions of Baron Bjor, which should have been in vain, were placing the family on the guillotine.
“It’s truly frustrating that we can’t do anything despite all the evidence being presented.”
Common’s testimony and the crystal ball found in his room clearly indicated that Bjor and Common had engaged in some kind of transaction, but that alone could not dramatically change the situation.
As Baron Bjor had anticipated, Freya had also realized that victory in court was entirely out of reach.
Whenever discussions arose about the fairness of modern trials, which had been built upon decades of culture and history, people scoffed at the notion.
Especially Freya, who was one of the heirs of the Hansung Group, had witnessed from a young age that for those who created the law and those who could buy their way into such positions, the law was nothing more than a sharp guillotine; it was merely a toy for children.
Thus, it was easy to predict that there was no reason or need for the imperial court, which was entirely composed of aristocrats due to the class system, to be fair.
Furthermore, the Evergarden family, with their current budget, lacked even the strength to continue a lengthy and persistent trial.
Therefore, Common’s confession was merely a transformation from suspicion to certainty.
“What will the ‘eyes’ do?”
“…I think Baron Bjor is probably starting to anticipate things by now. If so, there’s no need to pretend we’re ignorant in front of the ‘eyes.’”
Baron Bjor would be aware that Common had spoken, directly or indirectly.
In that situation, wandering around as if unaware would only add unnecessary stress without being helpful.
“Then, should we ‘handle’ it?”
“While the term ‘handle’ sounds very appealing, it’s not an option.”
Gordon immediately brought up the word ‘handle’ in response to Freya’s statement, but she didn’t show much of a reaction.
This was because she recognized that Gordon was an unusual individual, and that there was a significant gap between the perception of human rights from this place and the modern perspective.
Freya, who knew very well that even in modern times, a few bribes could easily make someone disappear, considered even murder to be just a means to an end.
“Considering all the misdeeds committed until now, we can’t continue living cruelly going forward. I’ll only ask you to investigate the list of those who raise suspicion as ‘eyes.’ After that, we can naturally write recommendations under the pretext of budget cuts and send them out of this mansion.”
“Understood.”
The most pressing issue was to somehow pay off the long-overdue debts and buy time.
“Is there any merchant that we can negotiate with right now?”
“The Evergarden territory has maintained high tax rates and tolls, so there aren’t any well-established merchants.”
“Oh, really? There’s no solution at all.”
Merchants are groups that pursue profit.
Such groups wouldn’t exist in the Evergarden territory, which didn’t have any particularly famous products, wasn’t geographically outstanding, and only had expenses due to taxes.
Literally, there were plenty of goods to sell, but with no merchants capable of buying them, the situation became one of simply pacing around in frustration.
“There are two methods to sell the precious items currently piled up in the warehouse.”
“Tell me.”
“The first method is to sell to large groups that periodically pass through here. However, for those merchants to come here takes quite some time, and they are also preoccupied with selling many items at once, so it is expected that it would take a long time to secure capital.”
“There’s no point in hearing more. If we proceed like that, Baron Bjor will take over this mansion before we can even sell the valuable items.”
“The second method. This one is a bit concerning to recommend, but it’s a way to sell many valuable items in a short period.”
“That sounds intriguing. Would you mind explaining?”
“We would sell to figures rooted in the underworld of this territory.”
“…Is the security in our territory that poor?”
Freya’s expression, which had been curious while listening to Gordon’s second suggestion, quickly shifted to one of despair and disappointment.
“Um… The amount paid to the soldiers maintaining security is low, and from that small amount, more than half is taken away as taxes. Living in this Evergarden territory, where the cost of living is extremely high, means that most soldiers maintaining security have rather loose pockets.”
“And many people must also be comfortable moving around by slipping them bribes. Sigh…”
“That’s correct.”
‘How foolish are the owners of this body? No, are all the nobles of this era like that? Or is it simply that their heads are pure in a stupid way?’
She felt that even if she sat her son—no, her wife—on this seat, they would manage the territory better than this.
The fact that the current owner of this territory was her wife made Freya hold her throbbing head.
If it weren’t for that, she would escape this hopeless territory and somehow try to live in a new place.
But in this reality, where even the escape route was blocked, Freya felt an overwhelming sense of despair.
“…First and foremost, we need to put out the immediate fire. Is it possible to get in touch with someone among those figures who can sell the valuable items?”
“Yes, understood.”
“Alright. It seems this night might be a long one.”
“I will bring another cup of milk tea.”
“Please make it two cups.”
Thus, the office of the Evergarden mansion, which hadn’t had the lights on for years, showed no signs of the candles going out even late into the night.