Chapter 7
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 7
He let out a derisive laugh, as if finding the situation absurd, and swept a careless hand through his hair. Then, his piercing blue eyes, which had been fixed on the sprawling Grand Duke, shifted to the woman.
“……!”
He stared directly at her as he lowered his legs from the sofa, one by one, and rose to his feet with a deliberate stretch.
Please save me.
As if he had heard the words she couldn't voice while being choked, Oscar looked down at her and spoke.
“The Grand Duke had too much to drink, didn’t he?”
The woman nodded frantically, her face deathly pale.
“He’ll ask what happened. After he drinks himself blind, he’s the type to lose his memory completely.”
“Yes, Your Excellency.”
With his right hand shoved in his pocket and a cigarette in his left, he stood there, his cool, sharp eyes belying his casual tone. Then, he offered a smile devoid of any warmth.
“So, we’ll go with that?”
Yes, please believe me. Yes, Your Excellency.
She repeated the same answer over and over, not even sure what she was saying.
Oscar listened quietly to her parrot-like replies before turning and leisurely crossing the room.
Terrified, the woman watched him go.
He showed not a shred of concern that the Grand Duke of Pelfe might be dead. It was clear he wouldn't care in the slightest even if the Grand Duke woke up tomorrow remembering everything. She would have bet her entire fortune that this man feared no one—not even the King of Pelfe.
Click.
The moment the door closed, she finally threw up all the alcohol she had drunk.
Meanwhile, the four men standing outside the door bowed deeply the instant Oscar opened it and stepped out. Their gazes were fixed on the floor, seeing only their master’s feet. Only after Oscar’s steps had faded from their line of sight did they straighten up and immediately follow him.
As the powerfully built men strode down the hallway, Katrin, the anxious owner of the Amang Rose estate, was struck by the overwhelming sensation of a canyon on the move. Her eyes darted between the door the Grand Duke had yet to emerge from and the departing Marquis, before she finally hurried after the latter.
“Y-Your Excellency…!”
She called out to him pitifully, but she couldn't capture the attention of the Marquis, who hadn't even spared a glance for Anna. He seemed to be walking at a leisurely pace, yet it was impossible to catch up to him. The best she could do was follow.
Katrin stumbled down the stairs. Beyond the wide-open doors, the black carriage the Marquis had arrived in was visible. One of the men trailing him finally moved ahead to open the carriage door, and the Marquis boarded as smoothly as flowing water. His detached demeanor was that of a man whose business was concluded.
Katrin froze, not daring to call out to him again. And Oscar, who had never shown the slightest interest in her to begin with, asked as soon as he was inside the carriage,
“The key.”
“We’re marking her,” Simon replied, sitting down opposite Oscar as he boarded. The carriage door closed, and the vehicle began to move as if it knew its master’s will.
As the carriage pulled away, the light from the estate receded, and Oscar was enveloped in darkness. He looked like a grim reaper cloaked in shadow, or perhaps like darkness itself. Simon sat before his master, holding his breath and making himself as small as possible.
Only the sound of the carriage wheels on the stone path disturbed the silence. From the darkness, Oscar murmured,
“Interesting.”
It wasn't sarcasm. A strange light glinted in Oscar’s eyes as he rested an elbow on the carriage windowsill and stroked his chin.
“Very interesting.”
It had been a ridiculous day, getting blindsided by an idiot. But as they say, when one door closes, another opens. Something completely unexpected had just rolled into his lap.
Vault No. 5555 at the Pelfe Bank.
It had now become something of an insurance policy—nice if it opened, but no great loss if it didn't. There was a time, however, when he had been hell-bent on finding its key.
That damn vault had been created the year his father, the late Marquis Reinhardt, had died. The traitor responsible for his father's death was a former agent of House Reinhardt.
Codename: Peter.
Vault No. 5555 was his.
The bastard knew better than anyone how persistent and cruel his former comrades were, and how they dealt with traitors. So, he had devised a way to prolong his life, secretly creating the Pelfe Bank vault and hiding his leverage inside.
If, at that time, House Reinhardt hadn't been at the forefront of the war on behalf of the Luxen royal family; if the Marquis hadn't died; if the core agents hadn't fallen in battle alongside him…
Or, if the only one left to House Reinhardt hadn't been a six-year-old heir. If the only adult left to lead the family, the Marchioness, hadn't abandoned even her own son and left as if she had been waiting for her husband to die…
Peter would never have been able to flee the Norfolk Continent in the first place.
In the end, Oscar had caught him. But he had also lost him.
To be more precise, it wasn't even clear if he had lost him. The ship that had been transporting the man alive had sunk.
The circumstances suggested he was dead.
But at the time, Oscar couldn't accept that. To write off the death of the traitor who'd brought the family to ruin as mere circumstance—the world he lived in was far too harsh for that.
He needed definitive proof, not just circumstance. Besides, back then, he had desperately needed that vault. He needed the family money inside it to rebuild his ruined house.
So he had ordered them, almost like a child throwing a tantrum, to find the man’s body and the key.
Time passed, but there was no news. Then, about three years ago, a report came from an agent who had been tracking Peter since his disappearance. The report suggested that the man was likely dead, having been lost at sea along with the key.
The young Marquis who had once, consumed by rage, ordered them to find the traitor was now a man nearly thirty years old.
Time had changed many things.
Vengeance against a bastard who might be dead or alive could no longer take priority over the countless urgent matters at hand. And the family money in the vault, once so desperately needed, was now a trivial sum to him.
There was, however, the document presumed to be inside the vault.
A single document, believed to be correspondence between the bastard Peter and the former King of Luxen, which he had placed there as a lifeline.
There were many pretexts, justifications, and methods to get a stranglehold on the King of Luxen. But the most definitive one might just be in there. Why else would the King of Luxen be secretly contacting the head of Pelfe? So, he needed it, if only as an insurance policy. But now that the key had appeared in the hands of some woman, he had to be the one to open that vault.
“This is it?”
The carriage had stopped in a high-end pleasure district not far from the Amang Rose estate. The district’s soft lights cast shadows across Oscar’s brow.
“Yes, Your Excellency.”
A cynical glint entered Oscar’s eyes as he stared at the magnificent brothel.
“Watching other people have sex is something you only need to do once.”
“I’ll send the men in to get her.”
“No.”
It was something that once haunted him whenever he closed his eyes, something he had desperately longed to hold in his hands.
Wasn't this the key to the vault he had searched the entire world for, to no avail?
Oscar swept his hair back and stepped out of the carriage. The brothel’s staff bowed respectfully toward the man emerging from the terrifyingly magnificent carriage. No one stopped him; he was clearly a VIP in every respect.
Entering the space, thick with the cloying smell of cheap powder and perfume and filled with vulgar laughter, he habitually put a cigarette to his lips.
“She must be loaded to afford a place like this.”
Simon lit it for him and replied.
“I don’t believe that’s the case.”
Oscar looked at Simon.
“If she’s not a customer?”
“……”
Oscar let out a dry laugh and asked,
“Ah, so she’s a prostitute?”
Simon hesitated for a moment, considering how to answer, before replying in a business-like tone.
“Let’s just say she’s on the verge of becoming one.”
Oscar’s eyes narrowed, but Simon added nothing more.
*
About 30 minutes earlier.
“We’ve arrived!”
Hurrying out of the carriage with her luggage, Seo-ah looked up at the mansion, so huge it was intimidating, and was lost for words. Uniformed staff moved about their posts, and from within the mansion, she could feel the thrum of countless people, like a single, dense mass.
“It’s a busy inn.”
“Ah…”
It certainly looked that way. The only problem was, she couldn't begin to guess what a single night’s stay at this inn might cost.
So, the money I have left is…
Just as she was touching the money pouch inside her coat, a door twice the height of a man opened, and a middle-aged woman emerged. She approached with a gentle smile.
“Welcome.”
The woman’s expensive-looking clothes only amplified Seo-ah’s worries.
“Um… I was hoping to stay for a night. Do you happen to have a vacant room?”
After asking, she fidgeted with her clothes.
Would they even accept a guest dressed more shabbily than the staff guarding the door? Still, it seems like a place that man wouldn't be able to enter recklessly, even if he did find me…
“Of course.”
The gentle words cut cleanly through her trailing thoughts.
“Please, come in.”
When their eyes met for a moment, the woman’s were curved in a kind smile. Seo-ah habitually lowered her head and asked again.
“Could I ask how much it is for one night?”
In her lowered gaze, she could see a picture-perfect smile. The woman paused, humming as if in thought, before speaking.
“Normally, it’s quite expensive, but we just had a sudden cancellation for one room. We were in a bind, having prepared the bedding and everything. If you take that room, I can give it to you at a discount. 100,000 Kerte. How does that sound?”
100,000 Kerte.