Chapter 16

Chapter 16

“Oh my, there’s an article about it again today?”

“So there is. Another article today.”

“But this paper really does exaggerate. Even so, five hundred million is going too far.”

Five hundred million larcs.

It was such an astronomical sum that Edward couldn’t even picture it.

The limit of the windfall Edward could dream of was perhaps ten million larcs?

His wish was to save exactly that much and go back to his hometown.

Land was cheap there, so he could build a house and live out a comfortable old age on the money left over.

Edward soaked in the sweet daydream for a moment, then was dragged back to reality as if doused with cold water.

It was because of a single sentence that came into view as his eyes ran down the newspaper.

[ Raise Messer, entered by Count Elpiers, was awarded to Marchioness Blair for 500 million larcs… ]

“Five hundred million?”

Edward blinked.

Still, the figure printed in the paper didn’t change.

This time he rubbed his eyes hard with his clenched fists.

Even with his stinging eyes, the figure in the paper was still five hundred million.

“Gah, hah, hah…! F-five hundred million! Five hundred million!”

Edward took hurried deep breaths to calm his pounding heart and looked up at Leonard.

As if he had been waiting for Edward’s gaze to turn his way, Leonard smiled mischievously.

“What will you do? Looks like you won’t even get to retire. You’ll be working unpaid until you grow old and die.”

“Huh? …Huh? Huh?”

‘At least until the Elpiers family goes bankrupt, that’s right. I’ll work without pay!’

“Aaaagh! This is absurd!”

“Don’t go signing things carelessly. Something like today could happen.”

While Leonard offered this piece of life advice born of experience, a knock came at the door once more.

Leonard handed the newspaper he was holding to Edward, then opened the door himself.

The one who appeared on the other side was Daymond, the head butler of the Blair town house, whom he had met once before.

“It is an honor to greet you again, Count Elpiers.”

“Did the Marchioness send you?”

“Yes, she did.”

Daymond took an invitation from inside his coat and handed it to him.

That the head butler himself was delivering the invitation meant that Leonard was a very important guest to the Marchioness Blair.

Considering that he had delivered formal attire together with an invitation once before, it seemed she had already picked him out as a groom back then.

No, perhaps even from the moment she had spoken of repayment.

“The Marchioness wishes you to visit the Blair residence as soon as possible, at whatever time is convenient.”

“Then would right now be all right?”

Daymond smiled broadly, as if he had been waiting for those very words.

“This way, please. I shall escort you.”

Leonard followed after Daymond, who gestured the way with a courteous hand.

Then, with a sound of “Ah,” he turned around.

“Pack our things while I’m gone.”

“Pardon?”

Edward, who had been dazed, not knowing how the situation was unfolding, finally came to his senses.

“W-why pack? Y-you couldn’t possibly be planning to fire me, could you?”

“Why would I fire you? I can work you unpaid until you grow old and die.”

Edward’s mouth fell open.

Before long, his face flushed, and he cried out as if wronged.

“Count!”

Leonard chuckled, then told him the real reason.

“Now that I have money, I have to go pay off the debt.”

“…Ah, right! The repayment date is almost here, isn’t it?”

Leonard nodded once.

“And when I come back to the capital, we’ll change lodgings, so while I’m gone, find us a place with no bugs. And finish reading that newspaper too.”

Leonard pressed a small slip of paper into Edward’s hand and went out.

When Edward belatedly saw that the paper in his hand was a check, and that the amount written on it was ten million larcs, his legs gave out and he slumped to the floor.

“Hoooh… Good heavens, our Count really has become a overnight millionaire…”

Surely he didn’t mean for me to spend all this money on changing lodgings, so this must be a bonus for all my hard work until now. Right…?

Edward counted the zeros written on the check over and over without end, then belatedly remembered.

“But why did he tell me to finish reading the newspaper?”

Could there be news even more shocking than this? Could there possibly be such a thing?

His heart pounded with curiosity and anticipation.

Skimming the newspaper quickly, Edward soon understood why Leonard had told him to finish reading it.

[ Marchioness Blair has hurled a scathing warning at the irresponsible press.

Marchioness Blair declared that the article in the newspaper published by L Press on month x, day xx was a groundless rumor, and has moved to file a complaint against L Press for defaming her fiancé (Leonard Elpiers) and his family.

The Marchioness stated that, so that no one else would suffer as she has, she will never settle, and that she cannot trust a press that spreads groundless rumors behind the cover of anonymity, and she has barred her name from being mentioned by the outlet in question.

She added that she will not forgive anyone who mentions or spreads the rumor secondhand, either… ]

“W-wow…!”

Good heavens, good heavens, good heavens!

“What is this? Wow, wow!”

She says she will never forgive them.

She says she’ll fight until Lotus Press shuts down.

Marchioness Blair was carrying out, perfectly, the justice he had always dreamed of seeing done.

Edward wriggled in his seat, as excited as a child.

“I wonder if the Blair household is hiring a new aide?”

For this moment at least, the ten-million-larc check didn’t even register.

Forgetting all about finding new lodgings, Edward sat right where he was and read the article over and over until it was worn threadbare.

* * *

“How in the world do you plan to clean this up?!”

The newspaper that flew from Count Matthias’s hand struck Lloyd in the face and dropped to the floor.

Since it was only paper, it didn’t hurt much.

Instead, welling humiliation kept Lloyd from lifting his head.

“Every press outlet is condemning us right now! And that’s not all! Scheduled interviews have been canceled one after another, and our sponsorships have been cut. Today’s edition couldn’t even be published!”

Count Matthias had not known until today that the name of Marchioness Blair could fit into a sixteen-page newspaper so many times.

“What do you think will happen from here? Saying that a press the Marchioness Blair can’t trust is one we can’t trust either, a thousand places will ban coverage! Now the only road left for our press is ruin! And it’s because of you!”

“But Father…”

“You still have something to say at a time like this? Fine, go on, say it. Let me hear what on earth it is.”

Count Matthias seemed to have already lost all hope in his own son.

Lloyd found that reaction deeply hurtful and unfair.

Isn’t it possible for a person to make a mistake once in a while?

Besides, this wasn’t even a mistake. If the Marchioness Blair were making unreasonable demands, that would be another matter!

“I never spread any rumor. That article is true!”

“And can you prove it?”

Lloyd nodded vigorously.

“I heard it from a servant who used to work for the Elpiers household.”

When the family sank into debt, most of the people employed at the Elpiers residence were dismissed.

Lloyd had summoned several of them to his estate to gather Leonard’s weaknesses.

The rumor of an affair with the late Countess was precisely what he had pieced together from the stories he heard then.

“And then? Are you saying you’ll interview that servant now and write another article?”

“Then it would prove that the article is true…”

“You damned fool!”

This time, a paperweight from the desk came whizzing toward Lloyd’s head.

Barely dodging that weapon, Lloyd pressed a hand to his pounding chest and cried out to Count Matthias.

“Father!”

“And then? Do you think the Marchioness Blair will sit back and watch you prove the article true that way? Do you think she’ll withdraw her complaint for that?”

“B-but isn’t it possible that the Marchioness Blair really doesn’t know? She might even be grateful to me!”

“As if that woman doesn’t know! Would a person of the Marchioness Blair’s standing go ahead with an engagement without knowing anything about her own fiancé?!”

Lloyd shrank back in advance, already cowering, to avoid Count Matthias, who was huffing and puffing as he looked for something else to throw.

At that pitiful sight, Count Matthias beat his chest and lamented.

When he had graduated top of his class at the military academy, he had been a son to rival any other man’s, so how had he ended up like this?!

“Listen well. The moment the Marchioness Blair calls something false, it becomes false.”

The result was exactly the boycott aimed at Lotus.

“Do you have the power to overturn that?”

The answer Lloyd finally produced after a long while was this.

“If I get help from His Highness the Second Prince…”

“Not Her Highness the Crown Princess, but the Second Prince? How exactly is he supposed to help you?”

It was only natural that Count Matthias scoffed.

The Second Prince’s faction was nothing but a gathering of hangers-on who hadn’t made it into the Crown Princess’s faction.

If Lloyd had been under the Crown Princess’s protection, the Marchioness Blair could not have come at him this hard either.

The more he thought about it, the more it felt like a loss that would kill him.

Why on earth had he thrown down the gauntlet with no justification and then lost in such a wretched way!

“…Even so, he is a member of the imperial family, isn’t he? He will surely help me.”

“Fine, go and try to see him. Not that he’d have any clever solution.”

The Crown Princess could summon the Marchioness Blair and mediate things in some fashion.

But how could the Second Prince possibly have that kind of ability?

Once he came back empty-handed, his son too would realize he had grabbed a rotten rope.

Yet even Count Matthias hadn’t foreseen this much.

That his son would not only fail to meet the Second Prince, but would return without even making it through the gates of the imperial palace.