Chapter 19
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 19
“You said you would pay me five hundred million Kerte a week, on the condition that I entrust my safety to you…”
“Hm?”
“How much is five hundred million Kerte, exactly?”
Oscar let out a faint smile and slowly nodded. He glanced out the window, then at his own clothes, before speaking.
“By the standards of the Norfolk Continent’s upper class, a mansion in the capital of any decent kingdom would cost about ten billion Kerte. Ah, but that excludes castles. Those aren’t typically assigned a value.”
“I see.”
“In any case, the annual upkeep for such a house would be around four or five hundred million Kerte. A suit like the one I’m wearing costs somewhere between five and ten million Kerte. But that’s by upper-class standards. The average annual income for the middle class is about fifty million Kerte.”
“…”
“It will take at least half a year to open the vault, as you’ll see when we go to the Pelfe Bank. During that time, you’ll be under my protection. In return, you’ll be kept safe and receive the price of a mansion… Not a bad deal, is it? And once you add the money from the vault, it will be quite a sum.”
“…”
“Is it not enough?” Oscar asked, his tone so gentle it sounded absurd even to his own ears.
If she said it wasn’t enough, he could just add more. He’d spent hundreds of millions on that fool in Pelfe in a single night; what was the big deal?
As he was thinking this, Seo-ah, who had been staring at the contract with an unreadable expression, gave a small shake of her head.
“No. It’s not that.”
She lifted her eyes for a moment before lowering them again.
“That will be enough.”
When she placed the contract on the table, the edge she had been gripping was puckered and wrinkled. Seeing the tension still clinging to the paper, the corners of Oscar’s lips curled upward.
“Alright. If you ever feel it’s not enough, just let me know.”
He pulled a fountain pen from his coat and held it out.
“Shall we sign, then?”
Seo-ah gazed at the fountain pen, then carefully rose from her seat. She presented her hands, neatly clasped together.
For a moment, Oscar’s gaze rested on them.
For the hands of someone who had come to a distant foreign land in need of money, they were slender and soft, without a single callus.
He placed the fountain pen on her palms, and her fingers closed gently around it.
The woman, now holding the pen, sat back down. This time, she didn’t try to open it, but simply stared at it in her hands. Wondering what she was doing, he watched as she timidly examined it from all angles—not by turning the pen itself, but by tilting her head this way and that, as if observing a treasure in a museum.
“Is this the first time you’ve seen a fountain pen?”
“…”
“You’ve never seen one.”
As he muttered nonchalantly, she bit her lip.
“Well…”
She tried to speak, but her voice seemed to crack, and she cleared her throat with a small cough. She took a breath, bowing her head a little deeper. When she looked up, her entire face was flushed.
“I have seen a pen that you dip in ink.”
“That’s an antique.”
“…”
“Open the cap.”
But even that seemed to be a difficult command. Her eyes blinked rapidly as she cautiously tried to twist the seam where the cap met the body.
Of course, it would just spin.
“You have to pull it.”
She was remarkably obedient. She quickly gripped it with both hands and pulled. The bones on the back of her hands stood out in sharp relief from the effort, but the pen remained stubbornly sealed.
“…You can’t get it open?” he asked, incredulous. Her flushed face turned a deep crimson.
“It’s not that. I just… I was afraid I might break it…”
Maybe I don’t even need a contract, Oscar thought, and he couldn’t help but laugh.
“At five hundred million Kerte a week, you can afford to use something like that once and throw it away. Just pull it off.”
It was an absurd way to open a pen that could be uncapped with one hand, but Seo-ah finally managed it with two. Her face now completely red, she bowed her head even lower, brought the tip of the pen to the signature line, and asked, “Should I write my name here?”
He now saw that the backs of her hands were red, too. Oscar glanced at them and gave a slight nod.
“Use the same name as on the identification papers you presented to the Pelfe Bank.”
With her red hands, she gripped the pen firmly and wrote her name vertically, letter by neat letter. Oscar, who had been watching the elegant characters take shape, tilted his head and asked, “Are you writing ‘Seo-ah’?”
“Yes.”
“But there are three characters.”
She paused for a moment, then pointed to the topmost character with the tip of her pen.
“Han Seo-ah. My name is Seo-ah, and my surname is ‘Han.’”
Oscar rolled her name around in his mouth for a moment.
Han Seo-ah, is it?
After finishing her signature, she closed the cap and tried to return the pen, but Oscar simply took the contract and said, “You can keep it.”
Then, before Seo-ah could say anything, he rose from his seat. In truth, something had come up. He could feel Simon waiting anxiously outside the door like a dog. Signing the contract was something he could have easily delegated to his Wolves.
He placed the contract on his desk and turned around to see the woman standing with impeccable posture.
A woman who was pale, small, simple, and who turned red so easily.
Had he found her strangely captivating and amusing to watch, or was the habit of searching for that damn key just branded into him? He had lingered longer than he’d intended.
Oscar stared intently at Seo-ah as he buttoned the jacket he had previously undone. Then, he started walking with long, purposeful strides, a stark contrast to his leisurely demeanor from moments before. He swept past Seo-ah in an instant, and as he reached the door, it opened from the outside as if on cue. Oscar acted as if he had expected it, not breaking his stride for even a moment as he moved to pass through the doorway.
“Excuse me…!”
A sudden voice stopped him in his tracks. He turned to see the woman standing there, flustered, a blush creeping all the way to her hairline. Oscar blinked once, then twice, but he had no intention of giving her another moment of his time.
He saw no reason to even ask why she had called out and was about to turn and leave.
“When will you be back?”
A small, trembling voice traced the shell of his ear and flowed inside.
Oscar, who had already taken a step, turned back to look at her again.
“…”
But it was only for a fleeting moment. Without a word of reply, he passed through the door. The instant he crossed the threshold, the gentle expression he wore, like a mask, evaporated.
As the waiting Wolves bowed their heads respectfully, Simon, who had been standing by, immediately fell into step beside Oscar and whispered, “Your private audience with the King of Pelfe was thirty minutes ago.”
Oscar swept back a fallen strand of hair and retorted with a cynical sneer.
“Whether it’s thirty minutes or three hundred, I had something more important to do. He can wait.”
“It’s likely he wants to see you about the matter with Grand Duke Baden.”
“That was gentlemanly enough, wasn’t it? What’s the problem?”
Seeing the cruel twist of Oscar’s lips, Simon shut his mouth.
It was as if the King of Pelfe, who had been waiting for him for thirty minutes, wasn’t even on his mind. The king was not mentioned at all in what he said next.
“Abel.”
“He should arrive by this evening.”
Oscar gave a slight nod. Then, a faint question he had deemed unworthy of a reply surfaced in his mind.
It was a strange question, out of context. What did it matter to her when he returned?
Oscar’s eyes narrowed. But he had too much to do to dwell on the Outsider’s awkward words.
“Have some men accompany her when she goes to the Pelfe Bank. If she wants to go somewhere, don’t stop her. Let her do as she pleases. And have someone sent to the hotel so she can buy whatever she needs.”
“Understood, Your Excellency.”
Having received his orders, Simon stopped in his tracks, but Oscar walked away without a backward glance, his footsteps echoing down the hall.
Oscar von Reinhardt.
A breeze stirred in his wake, and on it lingered a faint scent—reminiscent of the ash and smoke left behind after a fire has devoured everything.
Seo-ah blinked blankly, then looked down at her hand.
The body of the pen was black as obsidian, with a glossy sheen. Both ends were adorned with what looked like gold, and when the cap was removed, the nib, too, was a glittering gold.
With this, she had signed her name on a contract.
A contract.
Seo-ah turned her head to look at the desk. The contract, with their names written side by side, lay casually on its surface as if it were nothing of consequence.
His specific instruction to use the ‘name on the identification papers presented to the Pelfe Bank’ was likely a precaution against any potential disputes with the bank.
“It will take at least half a year to open the vault. During that time, you’ll be under my protection. In return, you’ll be kept safe and receive the price of a mansion… Not a bad deal, is it? And once you add the money from the vault, it will be quite a sum.”
It sounded good, but in the end, it meant her freedom would be confined until the day the vault was opened.
The clause regarding the entrustment of her safety was clear.
For her protection, she shall reside in a location designated by Marquis Reinhardt. When leaving the designated area, she must be accompanied at all times by persons approved by the Marquis. In an emergency, she shall obey the orders of the Marquis or his designated agents.
But nowhere in the contract was ‘protection’ defined. So even if that protection was limited to merely keeping her alive—in other words, even if her body were not kept whole—he would not be in breach of the contract.
“…”
For now, this was enough.
The breath she had been holding burst from her lungs. The heat of it seemed to parch her lips. Her heart felt like it would explode, and her back was already soaked with cold sweat.
And yet…
For now, this was enough.
* * *
Beneath a massive tapestry embroidered with the scales of justice stood a throne forged from steel. On that throne, which symbolized the steel vaults of the Pelfe Bank, sat King Henry IV of Pelfe. His brow was deeply furrowed, his eyes closed.