Chapter 02
Family
Eri Abil looked away from the lawyer, who introduced himself as Johnson and instead focused on her mother, who was sitting silently behind him.
“Mom, what does that mean?”
“First, come sit down. Mr. Johnson, please sit too.”
Johnson sat back down and pulled his chair closer to the oak table.
His large bowler hat rested on the table, and seeing a man’s belongings inside the house after a long time made Eri feel strange.
She also felt an unexplained hostility toward Johnson, not her father.
Eri stayed cautious and sat up straight next to her mother.
The tea was completely cold, and the kettle was empty, showing that they had been talking for a long time.
As Eri sat down, Johnson repeated mechanically what he had said earlier.
“I am Johnson, the lawyer of the Ernest Count family. I have served this noble family for three generations. Today, I have come by the Count’s order to bring Miss Eri.”
“Who is this Ernest Count, and why does he want to see me?”
“Oh my— you don’t know anything.”
Johnson signed shortly and cast a resentful glance at Mrs. Abil.
Mrs. Abil lowered her eyes like a guilty person.
Eri was frustrated seeing her usually confident mother unable to say anything.
Johnson spoke again.
“Ernest Count is your grandfather, Miss Eri.”
“My… grandfather?”
“Yes. The Ernest Count family is a very old and respected noble house. The Count is a model for many nobles.”
Eri couldn’t respond quickly.
Her parents had told her that her grandfather had passed away.
But if she questioned her mother here, Johnson might glare at her mother again with that displeased look.
While Eri watched her mother nervously, Johnson clicked his tongue and continued.
“Ernest Count had three sons, and the youngest is your father, Yuriy Ernest. However, the youngest son had conflicts with the Count about marriage…”
Johnson looked at Mrs. Abil again, this time with clear hostility.
“In the end, the youngest son cut ties with the Count and moved here following Mrs. Abil.”
Hearing family secrets from a stranger was an unpleasant experience.
But more than that, Eri was upset by Johnson’s rude attitude.
“I understand, but why do you look at my mother like you’re scolding her?”
“Eri!”
Mrs. Abil, who had been silent, suddenly looked up, startled.
Of course, Eri could guess why Johnson acted this way.
As someone who worked for the family for three generations, Johnson must have known her father since he was young.
His way of calling her father ‘young master’ even showed some affection.
“You seem to think my mother is the reason my father was abandoned by my grandfather.”
“…”
“Marriage happens when two people love each other. Mother didn’t hold father back, and father wasn’t cut off because of her. Father loved my mother and chose her, not the family.”
“…I apologise.”
Johnson opened his eyes wide in surprise but quickly composed himself and spoke dryly.
“My apologies for the rudeness, Mrs. Abil. And Miss Eri.”
Although he changed the title from “Miss Eri” to “Miss Eri” (using a slightly more polite term), Eri felt more comfortable.
Now she felt ready to talk.
So, in a softer voice, she said to Johnson as if calming him down.
“Anyway, what I’m curious about is why someone who didn’t even attend my father’s funeral comes now, two years later, to take us away.”
Her voice was gentle, but the words were not.
‘Are you the only one who can blame my mother? I also resent my grandfather.’
After her father died in the war, Eri and her mother struggled to live.
Especially Eri, who had no time to grieve her father’s death before being thrown into the fight to survive.
She switched from day school to night school and started working.
The only good thing was that her skillful mother regularly got sewing work from a downtown tailor shop.
The bad news was that because of the war, prices for daily necessities skyrocketed.
Even working without weekends, the two women barely made enough to live.
Johnson cleared his throat, perhaps surprised that Eri asked so sharply, and sipped the cold tea.
“…Actually, recently, the eldest son passed away.”
Eri knew her father had two older brothers, and one of them died young because he was weak.
But if the eldest had also died…
“Ernest Count had three sons, but all died young in very unfortunate circumstances.”
Johnson’s eyes flickered with sadness.
“Except for the youngest son, none of them married. So—”
“I’m the only grandchild.”
Eri cut him off, gripping the edge of her skirt so tightly her fingers turned white.
***
“Ah, Lorentz! Lorentz, you brat!”
Mrs. Bringer screamed, tearing at the lace of her skirt.
Her snub nose twitched as she snorted like a rhinoceros.
“How could you do this to us? How did I raise you? With what heart?!”
Lorentz didn’t reply with words but answered his mother coolly.
“You raised me to be a kind person. Especially, you took me to church every week, where they told us to help poor neighbors.”
“We are the poor neighbors! We are!”
Mrs. Bringer screamed loudly and then angrily pounded her chest with her fists.
“Oh, I can’t live like this! It’s all because of that brat! Honey! Say something!”
Mrs. Bringer pretended to faint while clutching her neck, and Mr. Bringer supported her.
But he was also trembling all over and looked helpless.
Still, as the head of the family, he kept some dignity and seated his crying wife on the sofa, then shouted at the butler.
“You’re doing nothing while your mother’s about to collapse! Go get some water!”
Jowan stuck out his lips and slowly disappeared into the kitchen.
Mr. Bringer tried to stay calm but asked Lorantz, who was standing at the door with an indifferent face,
“Still, you can get some of it back, right? Not all, but at least some?”
“The ‘it’ is the 100,000 Dolrin war reward King granted Lorantz. That’s money Mr. Bringer could never earn even after working ten years.”
“Mother, Father, of course…”
But what came out of Lorantz’s mouth completely shocked them.
“You won’t get a single Dolrin back. I even signed a paper saying I won’t try to recover any later.”
“Ahhh! Lorantz Bringer! You crazy man!”
“Madam, please calm down!”
Jowan, who was bringing water from the kitchen, dropped a glass.
Clink! The sound of breaking glass rang out.
Jowan glared at Lorantz, scolding him instead of comforting Mrs. Bringer.
Because Lorantz was more than two feet taller than Jowan, Jowan had to stretch his neck to look up at him.
“Brother! Did you get shot in the head at war?”
“You’re calling me crazy in a polite way.”
“How can you donate all that money without even talking to the family?”
“Hah.”
Lorantz scoffed.
His twisted smile made his cold face even scarier, and Jowan’s knees trembled.
But losing to Lorantz in this fight was worse than death, so he exaggerated and widened his eyes.
“If anyone heard this, they’d think I took the house deposit to donate. Listen carefully, Jowan.”
Lorantz took a cigar from his pocket and put it in his mouth.
He lit the tip, and the red flame flickered, casting shadows on his cold face.
He looked very fierce.
“That money is my life’s price. How I use the money I earned with my life is my business.”
“Enough already! That’s 100,000 Dolrin, brother. With that, Father and I could have started the business we planned! We could have saved the family—”
“Keep dreaming.”
Lorantz blew thick smoke at Jowan’s face.
Jowan wrinkled his nose and coughed.
“Do your business however you want.”
Lorantz flicked the ash onto the floor and turned around.
“I’ll stay at a hotel for a while, so don’t contact me.”
“…Selfish jerk.”
The door opened and closed.
Lorantz pushed his messy blond hair back with his hand and breathed in the fresh air.
Damn it, it was the happiest day of his life.
