LODRT Chapter 10

Chapter 10

‘I feel like I’m going to choke…!’

Was I breathing too loudly? Were my eyes moving too much?

Could the sound of the bread I ate earlier digesting somehow be heard outside? Maybe I should have eaten later…

“Milton.”

Milton, who had been busy monitoring every little thing about himself, jumped.

“Yes!”

“What did you do today?”

Milton barely managed to answer.

“I contacted the Information Guild, which agreed to help with your false identity, and informed them that we had arrived locally and were carrying out the mission.”

“And?”

“Officially, Your Grace will act as ‘Alter’ of the Information Guild. Also, we requested that the guild gather information on the pawnshop.”

“And?”

“…We ate bread.”

“What kind of bread?”

Milton opened his mouth with an expression like he was about to cry.

“Cream… it was cream bread with strawberries…”

“Milton.”

“Yes? Yes!”

“Do my questions sound like an interrogation?”

Milton only moved his lips soundlessly, and Tessach spoke shortly.

“Your inability to answer is answer enough.”

“Yes? No, I mean, well…”

“Right. No matter how anyone hears it, what I said would never sound like an expression of interest.”

“Pardon…?”

An expression of interest? Maybe if it were an expression of threat, but interest?

Milton was still trying to understand what that even meant when Tessach said flatly,

“That pawnshop owner. She seems to know that I am from the Moro Principality. She does not know my identity, but still.”

“What? How could she? Did that mage who stole the sacred sword perhaps give her a warning?”

“She confidently said they do not handle stolen goods. But considering that the jewels Eivor stole were circulated through that pawnshop, it is hard to believe her.”

Eivor.

That was the name of the mage who had stolen the holy sacred sword of the Moro Principality.

After great effort, Tessach had finally found a clue.

He had tracked down the place where Eivor disposed of stolen goods, and it turned out to be the pawnshop across the street.

“And didn’t you say the magic tool for tracking the holy relic reacted as well? That proves that place is Eivor’s fence or money-laundering source!”

There was one more reason.

The clip on Tessach’s cufflink was a magic tool designed to glow when it detected the energy of the sacred sword.

And the moment he entered the pawnshop, it had glimmered faintly.

That would have been impossible unless Eivor, the one who stole the sacred sword, had visited that pawnshop.

“That woman is definitely Eivor’s accomplice!”

“There was one more unusual thing.”

“What do you mean?”

“She wasn’t afraid of me.”

Milton was genuinely shocked.

“What?! That can’t be! Th-then she must not be an ordinary person. Maybe she’s a vicious criminal broker deeply involved in Eivor’s crimes…”

“That must be it. The magic tools do not lie.”

But Tessach’s expression was still shadowed.

One year earlier, a series of fires had broken out in the eastern part of the principality.

They could find neither the cause nor the culprit, and were struggling with the case when that man appeared.

Eivor.

Eivor uncovered that the fires had been a cleverly hidden curse, and after tracking it down, he even caught the criminal.

Because of that, it had not taken long for him to gain the trust of the principality.

Before long, he had become one of the advisers who provided magical counsel to the principality.

Gentle and mild in personality, Eivor had earned trust not only for his skill but also for his good reputation.

Everyone had trusted him.

Until the day he stole the sacred relic and vanished.

There had been only one person who instinctively suspected and guarded against that mage from the beginning.

Tessach alone.

“But…”

The red cigarette Tessach had smoked in the pawnshop was actually an interrogation magic tool.

Anyone who inhaled the smoke would become hazy and begin to tell the truth.

And yet even after breathing in the smoke, the woman’s attitude had not changed at all.

Clear-minded and firm, she had shot back that they did no such thing as deal in stolen goods.

‘A young woman would never be running a place like that alone. So I thought that if I made her an employment offer, someone higher up would appear. But that was refused as well.’

When he had told her to buy him, it had really been a disguised offer of undercover employment, and a way to test who was inside the shop.

Since Tessach had only ever dealt with criminals during interrogations, he had assumed this was the sort of language they naturally used with each other.

But the woman had refused without a moment’s hesitation.

There had been certainty in her pale purple eyes.

“Why is it that the woman’s words do not seem to be lies either?”

With a complicated look, Tessach looked down at the business card on the desk.

The card he had given the woman was also a magic tool.

Because it was so thin, it could not hold much magic power, so while someone was touching it, it could only transmit the sounds around them.

The woman’s voice, which had come through that card, still lingered in his ears—just like when she had whispered by his ear a little while earlier.

“That’s a pretty name.”

At this point, there was only one way to find out what was true.

Running a rough hand through his hair, Tessach muttered,

“I’ll have to check the second floor myself.”

“Hmm… ten million gold, huh.”

I shook my head as I checked the account list I had withdrawn at the central bank during a break.

‘Grandfather didn’t secretly fail at investments or lose it all gambling, did he?’

The accounts in Grandfather’s name that had passed to me held about ten million gold.

Of course, objectively speaking, that was not a small amount of money.

But considering how important cash reserves were in the pawnshop business, this was, well—

‘If we’re talking cash alone, that’s practically nothing.’

The quick inquiry had already been disappointing, so just in case, I had come all the way to the distant central bank—but the details were the same.

‘For now, let’s leave that money as emergency funds.’

Thinking calmly, there was no way Grandfather’s private wealth was only that.

‘It just means the amount that can be checked through the bank is only ten million gold.’

The Lionet family could never have chased me out in my previous life just to steal a mere ten million gold.

But even though I had inherited everything except the house, I could not just sit back calmly and think, Well, the rest must be somewhere.

If I wanted to prepare for the family members who would come at me with red eyes, I needed to know the exact scale of Grandfather’s assets.

So where was the rest?

I smiled.

Something came to mind.

‘I wonder when Hugo will show up?’

First, let’s deal with that coward Hugo.

2. I Do My Best No Matter Who I’m Up Against

“Damn it, damn it.”

Hugo bit his nails.

The constant debt collection was already driving him mad, and on top of that, his older sister, Lady Rosanne, was also pressuring him.

Didn’t you say you would prove yourself through Uncle’s matter?
How much longer exactly am I supposed to wait for your ‘proof’?

Even lying just to buy time was reaching its limit.

But there was no way he could report a failure like this.

‘How am I supposed to say I got fooled by some twenty-year-old girl…?!’

He could not possibly admit that instead of holding on to Uncle Michele, he had let him escape while taking on a mountain of debt.

So he had to do something. He had to make that girl sign a proper contract!

Hugo anxiously waited for the aide he had sent to spy on the pawnshop to return.

“Count! I’ve checked out the pawnshop!”

“Well?”

“It looked like business was going fairly well. On average, five people were going in and out every hour…”

“Do I look like that’s what I care about right now? Hm?”

Hugo twisted his face.

“I’m asking whether Uncle was there or not!”

Hugo thought about how Michele, who was supposed to be ill, could have vanished.

There was only one answer.

That damned girl had secretly moved him away in advance.

But where?

A hospital? A hidden warehouse? A safe house?

Or could it possibly be… the pawnshop?

“N-no, he was not there! I watched all day, and he didn’t show himself even once! I also casually asked customers coming out, and they all said they hadn’t seen him either!”

“You’re sure?”

“Of course! If His Grace had really been at the pawnshop, then even if he were in poor health, wouldn’t he have come out at least once? It’s a shop he loves that much.”

The aide’s words made sense.

The uncle Hugo remembered had been a thorough perfectionist.

There was no way he would leave something in anyone else’s hands. Not even his granddaughter.

‘Unless there was some unavoidable reason. Such as him not being there at all.’

Hugo was afraid of his sister, but he was even more afraid of his uncle.

Once he became certain that his uncle was not there, he finally found the courage to go to the pawnshop.

“We’ll secure Uncle later. First, let’s go fix that contract.”

“Yes, Count. Is there anything else we should prepare? Documents, perhaps…”

“Just bring a sword. A very sharp, very frightening-looking one.”

“A-a sword?”

“Yes.”

Hugo ground his teeth.