Aslan, You Crazy Bastard?
"What are you going to do! Answer me, Aslan! His Majesty the Emperor is scheduled to visit tomorrow! You have a plan, right? Tell me you do! Quickly!"
"...What?"
"Hah!" Irene let out a sigh as if she couldn't believe what she was hearing. "What? What do you mean 'what'? It sounds to me like you had no idea!"
"Explain. What exactly are you talking about?"
"Hey. How could you not know!? It's the road you completed! His Majesty is attending the opening ceremony for the first monumental road through the mountain range! While he's at it, he's also planning to visit Belmont County. What are you going to do if you didn't even know about this!"
Irene grabbed me by the collar and shook me, her voice trembling with tears. This was the same woman who wouldn't shed a single tear even if stabbed with a knife, now on the verge of crying right in front of me.
"Is this information reliable?"
"It's straight from the imperial palace! If this isn't reliable, then what is!!!"
Alright. Let's sort this out. Once the road is completed, the Emperor will attend the opening ceremony. Then he'll ride straight down the road and visit Belmont County. Why didn't I know about this?
First, this road was originally a project Ariente had been handling. They gave up the construction rights, which is how it ended up in my hands. That leaves only one possibility.
The news of the Emperor's attendance had reached Ariente, but they never passed it on to me. Those bastards...
"Coachman. To Ariente County."
"U-uaaah! I completely forgot! I'm sorry, little brother! I really didn't keep it from you on purpose, it was just my forgetfulness acting up...!"
"Are you joking right now? You forgot about something as critical as His Majesty's visit?"
"I've committed a grave sin! I really have no excuse, even if I had ten mouths!!!"
"..."
Ah. My blood pressure's spiking. I thought they'd deliberately withheld the information to screw us over, but it was just plain forgetfulness? My suspicions started to rise, but watching the Count of Ariente prostrate himself on the floor, his face deathly pale, they quickly faded.
He'd thrown away all pride.
"You damn old geezer! Get up!"
"Uwaaah! I'm really sorry!"
"Forget it. Atone with your death. If you've got dementia, you should just die quietly. You don't want your kids seeing you smear shit on the walls, do you? Die, die!"
"Sister. Calm down."
"Does this look like a situation where I can calm down!!!"
I grabbed Irene as she tried to stomp on the Count of Ariente's head with her heel. We can't kill this guy. He's someone who has to keep paying us tribute—no, interest—every month.
After pinning Irene's flailing arms behind her back and waiting a moment, she seemed to have calmed down a little and turned to look at me. Her eyes seemed to ask, "So what now?"
"My lord. Thanks to your mistake, we've been put in quite a difficult position. How do you think you'd feel if you only learned that this country's absolute ruler was visiting the very day before?"
"I-I'd be extremely troubled..."
"If we make even one mistake while hosting His Majesty, the Belmont family might be erased from existence that very day. Oh my. Hiding it on purpose to get rid of the one who owes you a massive debt... That explanation fits perfectly, doesn't it?"
"N-no! I swear on my life it's not like that, little brother! Please believe me!"
"To prove your innocence and our friendship, you'd do anything, right? Isn't that so?"
"Of course! I'll do anything!"
A grin crept across my face at the Count of Ariente's answer. Realizing his slip of the tongue, the Count's face turned deathly pale.
"Then let's revise the contract. From now on, Ariente County will bear the cost of road maintenance."
"H-how long?"
"For life."
This guy was trying to negotiate with me? When I hardened my expression, the Count looked like he was about to burst into tears.
"You said you'd do anything. Go get the contract right now. If you delay, I'll cancel all the subcontracts and collect next month's interest tomorrow instead..."
"Uwaaah! I'll bring it right away!"
The Count of Ariente wiped his tears and dashed off, returning shortly with the contract. We revised it on the spot. Originally, Ariente handled maintenance while Belmont covered the costs. Now, Ariente would have to take care of everything.
The Evil God 'Kali' applauds your resourcefulness.
With this, I could save around 2 billion larks in annual fixed costs.
'Squeezing Ariente won't change the situation anyway. I might as well take whatever gains I can get out of this.'
What's done is done. Beating up the Count of Ariente here won't cancel the Emperor's visit to Belmont. So I'd just take what I could reasonably get and call it a day. If I took any more, Ariente might actually go bankrupt, so I scraped them clean right up to the line where they could still barely breathe.
Inside the carriage returning to Belmont County from Ariente County, Irene crossed her arms and glared at me with clear dissatisfaction.
"You. Did you run the family like this while I was gone?"
"Like what?"
"Someone who clearly screwed over Belmont deserves to be made an example of. They committed a sin so great that even if we killed them, they couldn't complain. And you're just letting it slide?"
"Why slit the belly of the goose that lays golden eggs? Practical gains come first. Family pride comes second?"
"You're spouting obvious nonsense. This is why people call Belmont a toothless tiger these days. You spineless bastard. Why the hell are you the acting head instead of me...! Ahem, ahem."
Irene raised her voice, clenching her fists, then cleared her throat.
"Haa. I agree this isn't a situation that can be solved by getting angry. So, what are you going to do now? Like you said, this is an unprecedented crisis where one mistake could make the Belmont family vanish. Do you have a plan?"
"You mean a plan for hosting the Emperor. I don't have one."
"You crazy bastard, really...! Eek!?"
I pushed Irene's lips back with my index finger as she tried to get worked up again and sat her down on the carriage seat. No matter how I looked at it, Irene simply didn't like me leading the family—she didn't actually want the family to fall. That's why she was at least pretending to cooperate in this situation where the family could go under.
As long as she wasn't here to interfere, that alone was already a huge help.
"I have a way."
There's still plenty of time to come up with a plan for hosting the Emperor. After all, I'm someone who's already played this game before.
...Even if it was only Chapter 1.
***
"Lord Belmont. I am a messenger from the imperial palace, here on behalf of His Majesty the Emperor who will visit tomorrow. There is an urgent matter I wish to discuss regarding His Majesty's visit schedule..."
"We'll leave it all as a surprise. Well, that concludes our urgent discussion. You may leave now."
"Wait! Lord Belmont...!"
I quickly drove away the messenger who had been waiting at the mansion. What? He wanted to talk about the visit schedule? With zero preparations, what could I possibly say? It would only expose my pathetic lack of resources, so I'd made up some nonsense to send him packing.
"A grand banquet, a lavish feast... Even if that's impossible, we can at least prepare something that isn't shabby. The goal is to avoid offending His Majesty and get through this smoothly without any crises. First, let's get rid of that pathetic-looking poop-colored monster."
[It's not poop-colored! It's dirt-colored! Kyaaak!!!]
"No, Heukheuk. You can't bare your teeth at just anyone."
"His stern Majesty will be disgusted the moment he sees something like that."
"No. The goal isn't just to get through this event smoothly. We're going to make a deep impression on His Majesty the Emperor. That's what we'll aim for."
"Have you lost your mind!?"
Irene glared at me, shouting, regardless of the children looking on in shock beside us. We both wanted the family not to collapse, but that didn't mean our approaches aligned.
"Don't say such ridiculous things. Leave a deep impression on His Majesty? If it's a bad impression, that might be easy, but a good one is impossible. His Majesty is like an emotionless monster, an iron man. To someone like that, the world is nothing but black and white. How are you going to satisfy a human who's never smiled once in his life?"
"That's..."
"Every method you can imagine has already been tried and failed by countless sycophants. He's a man who shows no interest in gold, silver, treasures, delicacies, art, or even the most beautiful women."
"There's one thing they haven't tried."
"...What is it?"
Irene looked at me with an ominous expression. Just as she said, the Emperor was an iron man. Unshaken by any temptation, ruling the world with strict and harsh standards. A monstrous human who made one wonder if he might actually be a machine.
But even an Emperor like that had a weakness. Something he couldn't tell anyone and kept hidden.
In truth, he...
"Children."
"...What?"
"We'll use the children. His Majesty definitely adores them."
He loves cute things. Tremendously so. He loves them so much he doesn't know what to do with himself!
"Aslan. You fucking crazy bastard?"