Chapter 58. What Was Inside the Cadmus Vault (2)
***
"Please do a favor."
I, who had been drinking the brandy, looked at him with a puzzled expression.
"If you return to the past... could you take in? If possible, I hope you find before the winter of the Goddess Calendar Year 355 passes..."
"No, did I not say that I don't even know if I will be selected as a regressor yet?"
I was flustered by the old man's heavy sincerity.
"I'm saying if it happens."
The old man looked toward the direction where Bigrove used to be beyond the darkness with eyes lost in remorse.
"On that cold winter day, I lost my family. By the ti I barely succeeded in making a coback and found my family, everyone had already died miserably."
The old man exhaled deeply, creating a puff of white breath.
"We... are fighting now to avoid becoming void, but perhaps... I already beca void starting from that winter day."
Flustered by the old man's sincere recollection, I looked down at the brandy bottle I was drinking. It was low-quality, but it was an extrely expensive brandy.
"You say there is no such thing as a free lunch in this world, so why are you handing over such expensive brandy?"
I spoke with a laugh.
"If I am selected as a regressor, I will pay the price for the brandy. Supplies Officer."
Hearing my words, the old man wrinkled his face and laughed.
***
I'm not sure if he's still here. Even Bonas himself couldn't rember the exact period. It was because it happened thirty years ago, and from what I heard of the circumstances, it was sothing that occurred quite urgently.
"Simon, there is sothing you need to do."
"Please speak, Baron."
Simon answered with a wide grin at for calling him to give a task after a long ti.
"I want you to find one of the rchant groups in this Bigrove. According to what I've looked into, there is a rchant group on the verge of bankruptcy..."
"Should I find them?"
"Yes. We also need soone to manage our money now. While looking for the family account, it would be good if I could pick up one talented individual."
Exclaiming in admiration, "Indeed, my lord thinks of many things even when he makes a single move," Simon followed the order.
"I heard that the rchant leader Gwendolyn is useful. Find him and report to ."
"Yes, Baron."
It wasn't a lie. The person who recomnded that the rchant Bonas Gwendolyn was useful was the administrative Supplies Officer Bonas Gwendolyn from the future. As soon as Simon heard my order, he turned his horse toward the city of Bigrove.
I should move too.
Not only Simon, but I also had work to do here in Bigrove. This visit to Bigrove was an official visit in which I proudly revealed myself, not a secret movent. Therefore, the first thing to do was to et Count Lacie, the ruler of this place and the head of the Lacie family, to pay my respects. That was the law and etiquette of nobility.
As the head of the Cadmus family, I was a person who should not neglect these things. I rembered that my father, Pallard Cadmus, used to travel up to Bigrove once or twice a year to pay his respects to Count Lacie.
"Let's go, Rakshar."
"Yes. Young mas... Baron."
And from now on, that role was entirely mine.
***
"Haha! It is an honor for the renowned Baron Cadmus to visit my territory!"
"Thank you for welcoming , Count."
I greeted Count Lacie with the utmost courtesy.
"If you had told a bit earlier, I would have been more thorough in my preparations. Please forgive my inadequacy for only being able to prepare this much."
"Inadequate? I have never received such a welco until now, Count."
I treated Count Lacie clearly as a superior, thereby saving his face. Since they were nobles no different from kings in their own territories, so occasionally held their heads high against , but since the Blanc before his eyes treated him with a humble and polite attitude, Count Lacie was greatly satisfied with that behavior.
"A truly precious guest has co! I must open the wine bottle I've been saving today!"
I noticed that Count Lacie liked , but I didn't let down my guard regardless. It was because nobles were always people whose front and back faces were different. Furthermore, since Count Lacie was a man who wielded enough influence to call himself the overlord of the south, I needed to be careful of his sches. I did not refuse the wine glass Count Lacie gave and dealt with him with a face and atmosphere that were appropriately tipsy.
"This is quite a sha. eting Baron Blanc in person today, it would have been perfect to make you my son-in-law! I happen to have a few daughters of the right age."
Count Lacie smacked his lips in regret with a tipsy face.
"I don't know why the n of the Cadmus family are so cold toward the Lacie family. Your father, Baron Pallard, also ended up choosing Tolo instead of ."
I looked at Count Lacie across the wine glass I was holding. It was for a very short mont, but I didn't miss that his unfocused pupils had shone fiercely.
"I don't know much about my father's affairs... but in my case, I had no choice. Tolo was my only blood relative, so I had no choice but to seek out Count Bartomyu."
"My boy! Do you think I wouldn't have welcod you if you had co to ? Southern affairs are as good as my own affairs."
"I am sorry. The situation was urgent and my thoughts could not reach that far."
He's trying to make take a side. Count Lacie was speaking as if whining while drunk, but he was clearly sending a warning to the Cadmus family for choosing Tolo over him.
"In any case, I do not think you, a rising star of the Felix Kingdom, will stay crouched like this. You must be planning to reclaim Norington when the ti cos."
"That is correct, Count. I will reclaim my rights along with the revenge for my father. So please be a source of strength for ."
This was exactly one of the reasons I t Count Lacie. If I could only obtain the cooperation of the Count Lacie family, it would be a great help in operating the army I would raise, so I couldn't neglect my relationship with him.
"Of course! We can't let those slly Gartaria bastards run wild in Norington forever! I will wait for the ti when you raise your banner!"
Count Lacie laughed boisterously and patted my shoulder.
"So do not forget, Baron Blanc."
"What do you an?"
Count Lacie lifted a glass of wine, drained it to the last drop, and spoke to with a dazed look.
"Norington is the southernmost place even in the Felix Kingdom. Is it not quite a distance from Tolo, which is in the center of the kingdom?"
"That is correct."
"So I am saying do not forget."
Count Lacie put strength into his hand that was holding my shoulder.
"Distant water cannot put out a nearby fire, can it?"
Count Lacie was laughing, but his eyes alone were shining fiercely.
"Please do not make the sa foolish choice as your father."
I could tell by looking at his eyes. The fact that Count Lacie had not been drunk for a single mont in this place.
***
I did my best to participate in the banquet Count Lacie provided at the castle owned by the Lacie family. The Count treated with extre hospitality through the banquet that lasted all night, and during that ti, he consistently flaunted Lacie's power to . It was a wordless pressure to co under him.
However, despite my young age of fifteen, I flexibly glossed over the situation as if a serpent were slithering over a wall.
"Simon isn't returning."
I woke up early in the morning, dressed up, and tried to leave the Lacie family castle to head toward the city.
"A-perhaps he hasn't found him yet?"
"Simon isn't soone who moves by force like that. If he couldn't find him, he would have co to report that he couldn't."
As soon as I and Rakshar passed through Lacie's castle gate to find Simon, a scrawny boy rushed at us as if he had been waiting.
"My lord, Baron Blanc!"
"G-get away!"
Thinking of the scrawny boy as a beggar, Rakshar tried to drive him away by baring his teeth, but the boy stubbornly clung on despite his threat.
"Werewolf! Lord Rakshar! I am a ssenger sent by Sir Simon Diez! I have been waiting for you all night!"
When his na popped out of the mouth of the boy he had thought was a beggar, Rakshar opened his eyes wide and looked at .
"Speak, boy."
I looked down at the boy and demanded an explanation.
"The person I serve is a rchant nad Bonas Gwendolyn, but he..."
"Must have gone bankrupt. And then?"
The boy seed flustered when I cut off his words, but he regained his senses and explained the situation clearly.
"As soon as the repaynt period for the debt ended, debt collectors clung to him. They are not content with disposing of Mr. Gwendolyn's assets; they are even trying to sell Madam and the young master as slaves, saying the money to be repaid is insufficient."
Hearing the boy's words, I exhaled a sigh of relief internally. Even though winter had begun and I reached Bigrove as quickly as possible, I would have missed him if I had co even one day later. Bonas could not specify the exact ti he was ruined. He only rembered that snowflakes were scattering along with a cold wind that seed to chill his bones, just like now.
He probably couldn't endure the mont when he failed to protect even his family along with his own downfall and had tried to forget it without realizing it.
"Lead the way, boy."
"Thank you, Baron!"
The boy was overjoyed and guided and Rakshar to the city. Bigrove, the territory of the Lacie family, was a territory whose primary focus was wheat production based on vast plains. Therefore, it was a place with a large grain market to the point where it was a custom for rchants of Felix, who primarily dealt with grain, to start their trade journeys from Bigrove first.
However, trade did not always guarantee sweet success, so the grain market of Bigrove was always a place where nurous rchants who made wrong judgnts repeatedly went bankrupt and fell. And those like hyenas who tried to bite the remaining carcasses of theirs always used to linger around. Just like now.
Nurous hyenas were swarming blackly and baring their teeth to bite the carcass of a single rchant who had fallen. And one sword I had sent was sharply raising its montum and blocking them.
"What kind of unknown brat is blocking us?!"
"Have I not said it several tis? I said I am a knight of Baron Blanc Cadmus."
"So why is the knight of that Baron brat, whose blood hasn't even dried on his head, blocking us?!"
"Because the Baron ordered it."
"Darn it!"
They were people who didn't already sound like honest rchants. Simon was feeling an unbearable anger as the debt collectors before him insulted , but he was firmly guarding his spot, recalling my order. Because if he were to move rashly here, he wouldn't be able to guarantee the safety of Bonas Gwendolyn and his family, who were shivering behind him.
Good. I was satisfied seeing Simon guarding his spot despite his face turning bright red. Thinking that he seed to have learned the basics properly from Hansen at the least, I thought I should obtain swordsmanship and an aura cultivation thod for him in the future.
"I don't know what kind of knightling you are, but we've seen more than one or two armor-wearers like you bluffing. Get lost before you face sothing ugly!"
"It seems you think we'll back down because you're using the na of a distant Baron. We are people who have co by the order of Lord Gregson! Do you think a re brat Baron who must be in Baltire can stop us!"
Even a dog raised at ho would bark loudly in its own front yard. The man nad Gregson was a rchant famous for being a big hand in the grain market of Bigrove. It was said that it was difficult to open a grain transaction without going through his hands, so the debt collectors had reason to hold their heads high. Furthermore, the debt collectors here didn't even think of Simon as my knight to begin with, and they were people who didn't even know I was here in Bigrove.
"It is difficult to just listen and let that statent pass."
However, reality always exceeded the yardstick of expectation. I, who had been listening to the debt collectors' words, stepped forward through the people who were watching. Simon's face brightened as he recognized .
"What kind of brat, whose beard hasn't even grown properly, is interfering in what adults are saying..."
The debt collector wanted to growl at as I ca out of the crowd, but his senses developed in the back alleys were sending a dangerous signal. I was no ordinary man. My overall appearance was that of a boy, but my gaze was so deep and dark that it made my age impossible to pinpoint. Furthermore, the werewolf who followed behind was glaring at him fiercely without hiding his ferocity.
"I am the very brat Baron Blanc Cadmus you were talking about, you ruffians."
My voice made them stop, and my cold gaze fettered the debt collectors. The alleyway, where shouting and cursing had been rampant until just now, was currently enveloped in a silence so deep that even a single mouse would find it hard to move easily. The man before their eyes made it so.
"H-how do you prove that you are Blanc Cadmus?"
The one who appeared to be the leader of the debt collectors squeezed out his last courage to counter, but even he was already feeling it.
I think I'm... screwed...
I sneered coldly upon hearing those words.
"You are impolite as well as lawless. You are truly a human who needs no rcy."
I spoke while looking at Simon at the sa ti as those words.
"Until yesterday, I was a person who shared wine with Count Lacie, the ruler of this land. I received permission from him to be here, and at the sa ti, I obtained his favor through the wine glass."
I gave a signal to Simon. That he could run wild to his heart's content from now on.
"We... are people sent by Lord Gregson. That person hiding behind the Baron borrowed our master's money and has not repaid it!"
The leader of the debt collectors used honorifics toward as if he had grasped the situation to so extent, but in the end, he was only making excuses for the impoliteness they committed by relying on the halo of the man nad Gregson. Hearing the debt collector leader's words, I sneered at them coldly and spoke.
"No matter how great the man nad Gregson is, you keep ntioning his na before , who holds the title of Baron."
I nodded to Simon and Rakshar.
"I must test just how great of a person he is."
Simon and Rakshar drew their swords and approached the debt collectors.
"If the man nad Gregson is nothing special, it will be fine for to kill you all."
My swords bared their fangs toward the debt collectors.
"If he is a person who wields as great a power as you say."
I shrugged my shoulders.
"I can just apologize after killing you."
The blades of Simon and Rakshar shone.
Reviews
All reviews (0)