Chapter 57
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Translator: Prime Works
Chapter: 57
Chapter Title: The Devil's Contract (2)
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The air in the reception room turned icy in an instant.
Deep fury surfaced in the viscount's eyes.
Lloyd's expression grew even more composed under that gaze.
"'As expected,' you say?"
He shrugged.
He tilted his head.
He brazenly asked back.
"It seems Your Lordship still can't let go of your pride? I've actually suspected it for a while now, and you've probably confirmed it deep down since earlier. And yet, 'So it was you after all'? Isn't that a bit too contrived a question?"
"What......"
"Your expression's great right now. Let's keep going like this."
Snap!
He sank back into the sofa and raised his hand.
With a jaunty flick, he snapped his fingers.
"See? You already suspected it was me. How much nicer would it have been if you'd just come out and said it the moment you saw my face?"
"So, you're admitting it was you who tampered with our dye workshop?"
"Yes. It was me."
"What exactly did you do?"
"Are you curious about the method?"
"Hoo. Of course."
The viscount let out a heavy sigh while still glaring at Lloyd.
He had no choice.
Dye workshop.
Just thinking of the recent disaster there made sighs come naturally to the viscount.
'My most precious dye workshop......'
To the viscount, the dye workshop was a golden goose.
Laconata fabric, dyed by specially processing the concentrated extract of radona fruit.
The Laconata cloth produced that way was exceedingly beautiful.
Vibrant and varied colors were a given.
Its unique deep luster, indescribable in words, was peerlessly exquisite.
No other territory could even imitate it.
Even using the exact same radona fruit yielded the same result.
The western slope of the Eastern Mountains.
Only radona fruit harvested in this region could produce that distinctive color.
Plant this region's radona fruit elsewhere?
The unique color and luster wouldn't emerge.
Transporting the fruit for use elsewhere didn't work either.
It would spoil en route.
Likewise, the fabric's color would degrade.
Moreover, the viscount's domain had over a century of accumulated special know-how in producing Laconata.
Thanks to that, Laconata cloth was treated as a precious specialty unique to Raconata Viscounty.
Naturally, it was the largest source of income sustaining the viscountcy.
Truly, an invaluable golden goose.
But from some point on, that goose went awry.
No, it died.
'It was... utterly impossible.'
About 50 days ago, one morning.
The dye workshop overseer had come to him.
The moment he saw him, the man started groveling profusely.
Sorry.
He'd committed a mortal sin.
The Laconata fabric was coming out wrong.
After dyeing, the colors turned bizarre. The unique luster had completely died.
'At first, I thought it was just that day.'
He figured it was just that one batch.
Maybe an issue with the fruit raw material.
Or something wrong with the fabric.
That's what he thought.
But no.
The next day too.
The day after that too.
For ten days.
For a whole month.
The Laconata's signature colors and luster never returned.
The once-beautiful hues turned dull and muddy black like never before.
The exquisite luster vanished entirely, leaving it dull and hazy.
Unsellable defective goods.
No better than trash.
'That's when it started.'
The dye workshop went into full alert.
They completely replaced the radona fruit raw material.
They discarded all stored concentrate and made fresh batches.
Yet the Laconata colors didn't return.
They even swapped out the fabric entirely.
But the results were the same.
The lost luster didn't come back.
Naturally, merchants who'd steadily bought Laconata turned away.
Even long-standing clients started dropping one by one.
The viscountcy's reliable income source had vanished.
Yet they couldn't pinpoint the cause even in that state.
Why had the Laconata's colors and luster died?
Despite countless attempts.
No matter how hard they tried.
They couldn't find it.
For the viscount, it was maddening.
Stress mounted so intensely that clumps of hair fell out daily.
Stomach pains flared, bile rising to his throat every night.
Yet all he could do was baseless suspicion.
'Yes, that bastard. Lloyd Frontera. Suspecting him was all I could manage!'
It was mere hunch, without evidence.
But he couldn't help suspecting.
Because he'd dumped wastewater illegally into Frontera Barony.
Inflicting massive damage and even blackmailing them.
He figured the people with the biggest grudge against him now were the Fronteras.
And among them, the prime suspect(?) was Lloyd.
'Young, but ruthlessly thorough.'
The meticulousness and cunning he'd shown multiple times already.
With that personality, he could easily pull something like this off. No one else came to mind.
The only unknown was the method.
That's why the viscount had eagerly approved Lloyd's unannounced visit and audience today.
He wanted confirmation.
What trickery he'd worked on his dye workshop.
He desperately wanted to uncover at least the method.
"You worthless rat, what the hell did you do to my dye workshop?"
The viscount ground his teeth.
He glared at Lloyd.
A curse?
Or vile magic?
Anything else didn't explain it.
Lloyd smirked.
"Hmm. First off, I'll praise you for fingering me as the culprit. Sharper deduction than expected. But here's the thing."
He shrugged.
"To be precise, the incident at your dye workshop wasn't something I deliberately caused?"
"What do you mean by that?"
Not deliberate?
What wordplay was this now?
The viscount hardened his expression.
Lloyd's smile deepened.
And finally, he revealed the true cause of the dye workshop disaster.
"You could say it was an unavoidable side effect of building the aqueduct."
"Aqueduct?"
"Yes. Built it over the valley. Nicely."
"What does that have to do with our dye workshop? Spit it out properly! Stop circling around like you're toying with me!"
The viscount finally exploded.
He perched precariously on the sofa's edge, leaning his upper body toward Lloyd across the table.
Lloyd leaned back comfortably into his sofa.
"Tsk. So impatient. Do you know the properties of limestone, by chance?"
"......What?"
"Limestone is a type of sedimentary rock composed of calcium carbonate."
"What are you......"
What ridiculous nonsense was this?
Lloyd's calm explanation continued.
"Shells, corals, sponges, plankton, and so on—countless creatures form skeletons or shells from calcium carbonate. When they die, it accumulates on the ocean floor. Over eons, it deposits and hardens. That's limestone."
"Wh-what are you even saying?"
"Shh. Hear me out to the end. Anyway, limestone formed that way makes excellent building material. Like the aqueduct I built midway up the mountain valley this time. On the other hand, limestone bedrock can turn surrounding water into limewater."
"Limewater......?"
"Yes. Grand term, but simple really. Calcium and magnesium ions from the limestone dissolve into the water, slightly altering the mineral composition ratio. That's it."
"And how does that relate to the dye workshop now?"
"It does."
"Why?"
"The water flowing at the bottom of the valley where I built the aqueduct? That's the upstream source of the Prona River that flows through your viscountcy and ours."
"What......?"
The viscount's rigid expression went blank.
Like someone who'd been clubbed over the back of the head.
Lloyd's utterly nonchalant explanation pressed on.
"Getting the picture now? To build the aqueduct over the valley, we blasted diligently. We exploded, dug up, and hauled out the limestone bedrock embedded in the valley walls. Oh, and we did plenty of tool work cutting and processing the quarried limestone. The entire valley got littered with massive amounts of limestone dust and fragments. Countless, like gravel and sand under the valley stream. And thanks to that—"
Lloyd's ever-present smile.
It slowly turned sinister.
"The valley water became just a tad more limewater-like than before."
"Then...... don't tell me...... the reason our Laconata colors changed......"
"Yes. The subtle shift in the Prona River's composition is the culprit."
"No...... impossible......"
"Of course, you wouldn't have noticed at all. The change is so minute and subtle. Not something you'd taste. Nor enough to significantly affect people or the environment."
Lloyd's sinister smile deepened.
He was right.
The limestone blasting and processing in the valley.
The minerals leaching into the valley water from that weren't exactly massive.
The impact on people, other creatures, or the surroundings was likewise negligible.
For a human body analogy, it was like the potassium radioactivity in tropical bananas.
'Bananas contain radioactive potassium isotopes, but to get radiation poisoning from eating them, you'd need at least 100 million bananas a day. Similar idea—the minerals mixing into the Prona River won't cause noticeable changes or harm in the human body. To die from mineral overload, maybe chug 100 million liters of river water?'
The limewater influx was that insignificant.
Of course, only for people and the environment.
"But it's different for your dye workshop operations. You probably draw river water for the dyeing and rinsing processes. Since that's how the wastewater flowing to our territory was made. Right?"
"......"
"That's how chemistry works. Oh, you might not know chemistry. Anyway, changes negligible to humans can hugely impact sensitive processes like dyeing."
"Th-that......"
"Oh dear, what now? My heart aches. I liked the pretty Laconata fabric too."
"......"
"But now, you can never restore that Laconata. The river water will stay like this for at least a decade. No handy way to pipe in water from elsewhere either. Distill it to remove lime? Pointless—the altered composition would still ruin the Laconata colors."
"I'll sue! I'll bring this injustice before the noble court!"
"Yes, go ahead and sue."
The furious viscount shouted.
Lloyd grinned cheekily in response.
"If you want, sue to your heart's content. Think you'll win?"
"What?"
"Limewater isn't a pollutant to begin with. No toxicity either."
"......"
The viscount was speechless.
Lloyd's merciless fact barrage—no, bombardment—continued.
"And what about this? The limestone and countless rock fragments scattered in the valley weren't deliberate. Inevitable from development work. You know that fails the 'intent' the kingdom law emphasizes, right?"
"Int-intent?"
"Yes, intent in the act. When there's no clear intent to cause harm. Plus, strictly speaking, the root cause is on you, Your Lordship?"
"On me? Why!"
"You illegally dumped toxic wastewater into the Prona River flowing to our territory. To counter that, we built the aqueduct in the valley. In that process, we unavoidably blasted limestone bedrock for quarrying. The valley water turned to limewater. And your precious Laconata fabric turned shit-brown like a morning hellgate gremlin."
"Huh, wha...... n-no......"
"Whoops. Getting it now? No crying, though."
"Impossible. Impossible......"
The viscount's upper body, leaned far forward.
It collapsed powerlessly against the sofa back.
He sprawled limply.
His dazed gaze fixed on the ceiling.
The viscount, finally grasping the incident's cause.
His eyes already lost focus.
'I got properly had by that bastard.'
Felt like a hammer to the back of the head.
But no escape came to mind.
No matter how he racked his brains, no sharp countermeasure.
Sue in noble court?
Even that seemed futile.
'Can't win. Just like he said. Limewater has no toxicity. It's just water. What lawsuit?'
Even if he sued and heaven helped him win in court, it looked hopeless.
'Ruling would take at least a year.'
Meanwhile, Laconata fabric stays ruined.
Clients all bail.
Lose the specialty, become beggars.
'That devilish bastard!'
Lloyd smiling smugly at him.
Chills ran down his spine.
No clue how far ahead that guy had planned and calculated.
No, struggling here would just let him counter with even bigger blows—he'd factored that in too.
'He'd totally do it.'
His fingertips trembled uncontrollably.
Ineffable defeat.
Overwhelming despair.
Like an ant in an antlion pit.
Someone once said when life's tough, close your eyes calmly.
That pitch-black void felt like his future.
'Can't win. No way out.'
In the end, the viscount gave up.
No path to victory, no matter the math.
So only one choice remained.
"I...... I was wrong."
The viscount bowed his head.
With a crestfallen face, he spoke.
"I'll immediately stop the wastewater discharge into your territory. So, I beg you like this. Just this once...... can you forgive me?"
"Forgiveness, you say?"
"Yes."
The viscount bowed deeper.
His teeth ground inside, but no alternatives.
Yet Lloyd's unexpected reply came.
"Hmm. But what to do. The river's turned to limewater—no fixing that."
"......What?"
"Even clearing the limestone fragments from the valley now is pointless. The bedrock's too exposed from large-scale blasting."
"What does that......"
"Truth. Originally, that limestone bedrock was lightly covered by siliceous rock layers—shale deposits. Like a seal around it. But that's all shattered now. Limestone fully exposed—no way to undo it."
"N-no, what are you saying. Then......"
"The river stays like this forever."
"......"
The viscount lost his words.
He'd thought apologizing would yield some solution.
That was his last hope.
Now it crumbled.
But then.
The devil before him.
No, Lloyd Frontera smiled meaningfully.
"Well, since you're begging forgiveness so earnestly, it's not like there's absolutely no way to revive your Laconata."
"Wh-what? There's a way!"
"Whoa, ease up on the sleeve."
"Ah, sorry. I got desperate and......"
"It's fine. I get it. So, shall I make a proposal?"
"A proposal?"
"Yes, a proposal."
The viscount bit his lips, staring at Lloyd.
Awaiting his offer.
Finally, Lloyd spoke.
"Here's my proposal, Your Lordship. The dye workshop, Laconata specialty—precious, right?"
"Y-yes."
"You want to revive and preserve it as a beautiful tradition?"
"Of course."
"Good. Then—"
Lloyd's eye smile beamed warmly.
From two months ago, when the wastewater incident first hit.
He finally unveiled the grand vision he'd harbored.
"If you want to revive that specialty and carry on the beautiful tradition, use our territory's water supply. Of course, pay a hefty monthly water tax."