Chapter 17
Chapter 17
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Translator: Ebonarch
Chapter Title: Game Over: Arrest Them All (1)
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*Meanwhile, at a certain merchant guild in the capital.*
"What the fuck...!"
The brown-haired man made no effort to hide his discomfort as he stared at the mountain of inventory piled up in the warehouse.
Items that no one had given a second glance to during the tomato sauce craze.
Just when he was agonizing over whether to let them rot as stock and get kicked out of his family, the Arrabbiata boom had blown in like a godsend.
By dumping pepper into the unsold sauces, he'd at least broken even, or so he'd thought.
It was a method that worked by smothering other flavors with rough spices to fake a spicy taste.
"Goddamn it, goddamn it, goddamn it..."
But more than that, the man had expected the business to thrive.
When the counterfeit Arrabbiata made by recycling old sauces sold out completely, it hadn't seemed impossible.
With that in mind, he'd borrowed money using the Merenes territory as collateral—beyond his family's funds—and now a mountain of goods loomed before him.
But that hope was crumbling away as quickly as rotten tomatoes.
The initial sell-out had just been a fluke amid the capital's frenzy, where people desperate for the real thing grabbed at straws.
"Ptoo! What the hell is this taste? It's just spicy!"
"My stomach hurts. This isn't food; it's torture!"
Once bitten twice shy—nobody opened their wallets again.
And understandably so, since the fakes offered nothing but crude spice that savagely clawed at the tongue, with no regard for the pleasure after pain or harmonious balance.
But the real problem erupted elsewhere.
Among those who'd snapped up the fakes without a care...
Some suffered immediate physical reactions from a single taste, facing serious issues.
"Damn it, damn it!!"
Some who developed genuine stomach problems beyond mere spiciness even filed lawsuits against the Merenes guild.
The trials hadn't even begun yet, but rumors of the lawsuits spread faster than a horse with wings.
Merchants cut ties in unison as if by agreement, and the lenders who'd provided funds were on the verge of grabbing him by the collar, demanding immediate repayment.
Branik slumped into a corner of the empty warehouse, clutching his head with trembling hands.
"Damn it, what am I supposed to do..."
"Young master! Big trouble!"
At that very moment, the warehouse door burst open, and a servant rushed in with a face on the verge of tears.
"The count...! They're inquiring about your whereabouts from the main house! They've found out you borrowed money using the territory as collateral!"
Branik's vision went white. His father's rage-filled face loomed before his eyes.
It wouldn't end with just being sent to a monastery.
He might even be disowned from the family. He could lose everything and end up on the streets.
"No... no! This isn't my fault!"
He shook his head like a madman, muttering to himself.
"Yeah, it's all that bastard Jonathan's fault. If it weren't for him! If he hadn't started this stupid trend!"
It was right then, as his pathetic monologue shifting all blame to others echoed through the dusty warehouse.
-Creak...
The heavy warehouse door opened slowly, eerily quietly.
Figures silhouetted against the influx of outside light. The moment Branik recognized the man at the center, his heart froze.
The very man he was always compared to, whom he hated to his core. Jonathan Valerius.
"Wha...?"
But he wasn't alone.
Flanking him were Imperial Guard knights in golden lion-emblazoned armor, and Princess Lorensia with her piercing, cold eyes that seemed to see through everything.
"Branik Merenes."
The woman in red robes embroidered with the imperial crest in golden thread called his name in a voice like ice.
Branik barely managed to squeeze out words through his chattering jaw.
"Wh-what brings you here...?"
Princess Lorensia swept him with a contemptuous gaze before continuing in her icy tone.
"I've come to clean up your foolish mess. Deceiving merchants with shoddy goods is clear fraud."
"But selling poison-like substances to the emperor's subjects, harming their health— that's deception against the entire empire, tantamount to treason."
Every word stabbed into Branik's heart like icicles. He desperately protested.
"N-no! It's a misunderstanding! I-I just followed the trend! It's all this guy's fault!"
His trembling finger pointed pathetically at me.
"Jonathan! If this bastard hadn't started this weird trend! If he weren't around, none of this would have happened! It's not my fault!"
His wretched cry drew a sigh from me.
I stepped forward, looking at him with eyes devoid even of pity.
He was nothing to me emotionally, but I hadn't expected him to be this pathetic.
"My fault, Branik?"
At my calm voice, he flinched but shouted back defiantly.
"Yeah, your fault! Acting all high and mighty by yourself!"
"You still don't understand why you failed."
I had one of his circulated sauce jars handed to me from behind.
The moment the cork was popped, a foul sourness and crude pepper stench wafted out.
"The reason you failed is simple. You didn't make this for taste—you made it a harm to sell."
"Wh-what...!"
"You stole only the appearance of my sauce, never bothering to understand the principles inside. You believed people would buy it if it was just spicy and cheap. That's deception of the customers and an insult to cooking itself."
I set the jar down and opened a pristine jar of my Arrabbiata beside it.
The spicy yet deep, fragrant aroma from the workshop pushed out the warehouse stench.
"The spiciness in my Arrabbiata isn't a tyrant that smothers other flavors. It's an awakening agent that sharpens the tongue, making them feel clearer.
"Pleasure after pain, harmony after stimulation. You never sought or worked for that balance. You just wanted to burn customers' tongues to cover your own misery."
At my critique, Branik's face drained of color. He couldn't retort. It was the truth.
"But that's just failure as a merchant. Your real crime is something else."
My voice turned cold.
"To cover your failure, to satisfy your greed, you did what you shouldn't have. You cut costs with dubious ingredients of unknown origin and even added toxic herbs to mimic the heat. Your avarice sickened innocent people."
"I made my sauce to offer small comfort to people, but yours became poison that harmed them. That's the decisive difference between you and me."
I stepped back and lightly bowed to the princess.
My role ended there. Revealing the truth and yielding to those qualified to judge.
I turned to the princess again and declared my part complete.
"Your Highness, we now entrust everything to the empire's will and laws."
Lorensia's voice echoed colder than the warehouse air.
"Deceiving and harming innocent subjects living under His Majesty's name—that is the essence of your crime. Thus, I am not the one to judge you."
She looked down at Branik with cold eyes and delivered her verdict, severing his last hope.
"The empire's laws will punish your crimes."
Branik completely collapsed. He slumped to the floor, trembling and whimpering like a child.
"N-no... I don't want prison... Father... Sister...!"
At his pitiful sight, Princess Lorensia let out a sigh laced with contempt.
"Calling for your family now? It's too late, you fool."
The princess declared coldly.
"The Merenes family will compensate for all the damages you caused and repay the debts with the territory you pledged as collateral. Your father must learn that the price for tarnishing the family's honor is steep."
It was tantamount to a death sentence.
Before coming here via spatial magic, Her Highness had roughly explained the situation. That idiot.
The moment family support cut off, he'd become nothing. No—a debtor buried under massive debt.
"W-wait! Your Highness! Just once... give me one chance! I swear I'll never..."
Branik desperately tried to crawl to the princess's feet, but before she could gesture, the guard knights roughly seized his arms and hauled him up.
"A chance."
Lorensia murmured with undisguised contempt.
"Do you think you lacked chances? Being born into the noble Merenes family was more than you deserved. But you threw it all away and chose the gutter. Don't beg now. It's disgusting."
She no longer spared Branik a glance and ordered the guard captain.
"Escort him to the imperial prison. Apply every applicable charge under imperial law—fraud, food hygiene violations, distribution of poisons, treason against the empire—and punish him severely. I'll personally send a letter to Count Merenes informing him of all this."
"Understood!"
As the knights dragged the struggling Branik away, his final outburst erupted.
With bloodshot eyes glaring at me, he spat curses.
"Jonathan! It's all because of you! I'm like this because of you! I won't let you get away with it! I swear...!"
His voice cut off muffled as the heavy warehouse door slammed shut.
With the commotion over, Princess Lorensia softened her icy expression as if it had never been and turned to me.
A playful smile returned to her red eyes.
"Well, that takes care of the headache-inducing trash. Sorry for wasting your precious time on such a lowly worm."
"Not at all, Your Highness. Without your direct intervention, it would have been far worse. Thank you for handling it swiftly in the empire's name."
"No need for thanks. It was also a matter of imperial prestige."
She shrugged lightly and stepped closer, a faint rose scent tickling my nose again.
"More importantly, we still have important business left, don't we?"
"Important business...?"
"The victims."
Her voice grew serious again.
"The commoners felled by this incident—the palace and temple have promised treatment and compensation—but that's just a stopgap. The real issue is elsewhere."
Her red eyes fixed straight on me.
"It's a matter of trust. Fear and distrust of 'red sauce' itself is starting to spread across the empire."
"People won't distinguish real from fake anymore; they'll suspect all red sauces as poison. If this continues, the new culinary era you ignited might end before it even begins."
Her words were spot on. Dealing with Branik was not the end, but the beginning.
How to restore shattered market trust—that was the true problem.
"What do you think, my lord? Any good ideas to turn this around? Our Jonathan."
She asked teasingly, yet with eyes that believed I knew the answer.
I pondered briefly, then spoke.
"Your Highness, the palace sought exclusive rights to distribute my sauce, correct?"
"Mm? Yes. But why?"
I grinned and replied.
"With the imperial exclusive authority, I have a proposal."