Breaking the Engagement
“I’m breaking off the engagement. I’ve already told Ray.”
“Ooooh! Thank the heavens! I am truly grateful!”
Scrooge thrust both arms skyward and gazed up at the low ceiling, launching into another fervent confession of faith.
Our Scrooge has received quite the blessing.
First, I needed to recover every coin that had gone to Ray.
Chloe stared wide-eyed at the ledger Scrooge had painstakingly compiled through tears of blood, scanning the figures again and again.
“Stop invoking the divine. Anyone watching would think you were holding a revival meeting. Whoa—160 gold in total.”
In Korean currency, that was nearly two hundred million won. Whoa, she really had been insane.
“You finished the calculations already?”
Scrooge asked in surprise, stepping closer to the desk.
“No. You wrote it right here. 160 gold. In very thick, red ink.”
“Ah, so I did.”
How deeply the resentment must have run for him to record the money sent to Ray in glaring red.
The blood-red characters felt like a bitter cry of anguish directed at Chloe Grace.
“Did I at least get a promissory note?”
Surely a promissory note had been written. If not, she might as well die of shame.
Chloe fixed Scrooge with a slightly tense gaze. Then—
“⋯⋯Who are you?”
Scrooge’s sudden question sent a chill down Chloe’s spine.
He couldn’t possibly have figured out her true identity, could he? Swallowing dryly from nerves, Chloe forced her voice to stay calm.
“Who else would I be? Chloe Grace, obviously.”
“That cannot be!”
Scrooge’s eyes widened as he shouted with absolute certainty.
“W-what do you mean?”
Chloe felt the world go dark. Was this the end—being branded a witch and burned at the stake? She was considering fleeing when Scrooge’s anguished voice continued.
“Our lord would never, ever study anything. There is no way such a person would know the term ‘promissory note’⋯⋯”
“Hey!”
Chloe’s sharp outburst made Scrooge flinch and step back.
“Aah! You startled me!”
“I know. I know everything! I was just pretending not to until now!”
Chloe shouted in irritation.
“It wasn’t mere pretense⋯⋯”
Scrooge continued to retreat, suspicion still clouding his eyes.
“I said I know.”
When Chloe glared at him, Scrooge offered an awkward smile and pointed at the ledger.
“160 gold. The amount given to Young Master Ray—without a promissory note.”
Without a promissory note.
“He didn’t write one.”
Scrooge nodded.
He looked at her as though she had only just realized something painfully obvious, yet there was also relief that she had realized it at last.
“I’m going to lose my mind, seriously!”
At this point, she could easily cover that amount. But this was no longer about money.
Her pride would not allow her to let it slide.
She needed to grind those bastards into the dirt and shake every last coin out of them before she would feel satisfied.
“Find out what kind of business Ray is trying to start.”
She would lie in wait at every step he took and trample him until nothing remained.
After finally calming her heart, Chloe visited the village where construction was underway.
Winter was approaching; her breath came out in white puffs. Anxiety quickened her steps.
“Any word from the people who went to buy fabric?”
Chloe asked Handsome while pulling her collar tighter.
If she felt the cold even in proper clothing, how much worse must it be for the villagers?
Fortunately, the maids had worked day and night with bloodshot eyes to earn the special allowance, so the children’s clothing project in Morta Village was progressing smoothly.
Today, only the finished garments had been loaded onto the carriage first.
Chloe glanced at the cart trailing behind the carriage. The carriage itself was packed with boxes of children’s clothes made from repurposed dresses.
Because Chloe’s taste had been consistently childish, the only redeeming quality of the children’s outfits was their bright, colorful patterns.
Still, the fabric was too thin to rely on alone.
“They arrived yesterday and said they would purchase the fabric today.”
“The bodyguards—I mean, the escorts—went with them, right?”
“Yes. Twenty of the most reliable men recommended by Knight Commander Red Bear accompanied Vice Commander Urun.”
“Good. We can’t afford to lose the fabric to bandits on the way back.”
Just then—
Rrrring!
You, who strive day and night to revive a poor estate!
You, who wish to feed the impoverished villagers rice and meat soup!
You have finally met the most basic, basic, basic, basic, basic⋯⋯ requirements of a lord.
Stop it already.
You have barely met the basics! Heh.
A new mission for the upgraded user.
You have created a substance that did not previously exist using newly acquired knowledge (a mixture of Como Tree sap and Tiese Stone).
Please upgrade it for wider application.
Upon completion, the time restriction on the unstable activation zone will be lifted.
Call! Absolutely call!
Chloe cheered inwardly at the promise of removing the time restriction and shouted with all her might.
If Handsome had not been standing right there, she would have jumped up and yelled at the top of her lungs.
But she could not afford to babble like a madwoman in front of anyone—least of all Handsome.
Still, it wanted her to upgrade what she had already made?
“What else should I mix with the Como Tree and Tiese Stone?”
The substance made from Como Tree sap and Tiese Stone was solid, but the yield was extremely small. Using it for construction in its current state would require felling thousands of Como Trees. Moreover, it hardened far too quickly to be practical.
It sounded like a request to improve cost-effectiveness⋯⋯
Somehow, the idea felt promising.
She would have to run some experiments once she returned to the castle after visiting the village today.
Morta Village was improving with each passing day.
The gloomy, ruined appearance that had once defined the village was nowhere to be seen.
The roads were neatly trimmed, the houses repaired, and white smoke rose from every chimney thanks to proper heating.
Chloe looked around the village that had transformed beyond recognition in barely a month and felt an unexpected sting in her nose.
“My lord!”
“Waaah! It’s the lord!”
The first to recognize Chloe were the neighborhood children.
The adults, busy with work, only realized their lord had arrived after hearing the children’s shouts.
That was why she had deliberately left the carriage outside the village and walked in quietly.
“Have you been well?”
The children quickly surrounded Chloe in a circle.
“Yes! We had a full meal of porridge this morning too!”
“Mother said it’s all thanks to you, my lord!”
“That’s right! Father said the same!”
Because of the cold, the children wore two or three layers of old clothes. As a result, the adults’ clothing had become even thinner, yet no one in the village seemed to mind.
Chloe smiled brightly at the adults and children whose wrists and ankles were clearly exposed.
Though their noses were red from the cold, the children’s faces remained full of laughter.
“Today I’m going to give you clothes to wear.”
“Clothes?”
A few children asked with wide eyes, but those who had never received clothing as a gift in their lives could not understand Chloe’s words and merely blinked their sunken eyes.
“Handsome.”
Chloe called the name that still made her feel oddly self-conscious every time she said it.
Handsome immediately understood what she wanted and signaled toward the cart.
The servants guarding the cart began distributing clothes to the gathered children.
The clothes had been made in three broad sizes according to age: three to six, seven to ten, and eleven to fourteen.
If there had been enough time and resources, she would have made more detailed sizes, but winter was right around the corner.
Larger clothes could be folded or rolled up.
“Are you really giving us these clothes?”
The children kept asking, unable to believe they were being given the garments as gifts.
Each time, Chloe nodded and smiled patiently without showing irritation.
“Hurry and put them on. Wear these for now.”
“Waaah!”
The children ran home clutching their new clothes.
Around the time they reached their houses, the favorability notifications from the villagers began chiming diligently.
Chloe listened to the alerts with a satisfied expression, then quickly climbed into the carriage before the villagers could swarm her.
She knew they would rush over with embarrassing words of gratitude and indebtedness.
“You’re not going to meet the villagers?”
Handsome asked, looking at the lord seated across from him with an awkward expression.
He felt immensely proud of how much the lord had changed.
“There’s still a lot to do. Hearing the same words over and over gets tiresome.”
Even though Chloe grumbled for no reason, the smile on Handsome’s face did not fade.
About thirty minutes after the carriage left Morta Village—
“Butler.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Handsome, who had been dozing off across from her, snapped his eyes open and answered. She had clearly seen him sleeping with his head tilted back and mouth open, yet he spoke in a perfectly clear voice as if he had never slept. It was hilarious.
“What was the name of the village next to Morta again?”
At Chloe’s question, Handsome’s eyes widened in surprise before he answered politely. He looked wide awake now.
“It’s Enol.”
Handsome wondered how the lord could not know the village’s name, then quickly recalled Chloe’s past behavior and accepted it. It was entirely possible for the former lord. She had never cared about anything outside her own interests.
“Is it far from here?”
“The villages stretch out in all four directions from Grace Castle. If we travel now, it will take a full three hours by carriage.”
“That long?”
“Yes. There is quite a wide stretch of wasteland in between.”
“No wonder there’s little exchange between villages.”
“Indeed.”
Even as Morta Village was being restored, there had been strangely little traffic from other villages.
Considering Morta’s original state, it was not surprising.
If people were on the verge of starving to death, they would not have had the strength to walk all the way to another village.
“We’re going to Enol Village.”
“Pardon? Enol Village?”
“Yes. Winter is coming, so we need to move quickly.”