The Deal Is This Easy?
At the point when the Empire’s war of territorial expansion had dragged on endlessly with no end in sight, two commodities had become desperately scarce for the knights and mages grinding across the battlefields. Awakening agents that forcibly pushed mana manipulation and physical endurance past their limits. And Mana Stabilizers that suppressed the mana running wild in the blood, preventing internal organs from rupturing.
As the war intensified, the Imperial family wielded a blatantly double standard. They pressured one ancient count household—owner of the continent’s largest mana stone mine—to double its output under the pretext of securing war materials, while simultaneously conscripting every line of the alchemical guild that produced the essential reagents for mining into wartime supply duty.
A nightmare descended on the family’s lifeblood mine. Endless assaults from magical beasts drawn to the thick mana leaking from the site. Knights standing watch for days and nights on end, eyes bloodshot, armor shattered. They endured on nothing but pride in protecting the Empire’s greatest mine. Yet their awakening agents had long since run dry. Worse, the miners who could no longer withstand the stone’s toxicity were collapsing daily, coughing blood from mana erosion with no medicine to ease them.
To compound the disaster, the family had lost its entire main bloodline to a mysterious assassination group years earlier, leaving only a skeletal framework. The sole survivors were the second daughter, who had been studying abroad at an academy on another continent, and a very young youngest son. Since the boy was far too young to rebuild the house, the second daughter abruptly inherited the title of family head.
Right after House Valois fell, that same young woman—with her shy, youthful face—had completely upended the Empire’s central power table. She presented a meticulous, flawless political design: only by fully absorbing Valois’s vast territories could the weakened factions prevent greedy higher nobles from igniting territorial wars and stabilize imperial authority. In one stroke she elevated a count house teetering on ruin into the Empire’s newest ducal house. Overwhelming strategic brilliance.
Of course, behind it lay the Imperial family’s naked calculation that a manageable puppet would be easier to control. The unfortunate family driven to the cliff’s edge was none other than House Arzen, home of Vivian, the second heroine of the original novel.
I instantly recognized the dire liquidity crisis and scattered exquisitely crafted bait through the back alleys. The colossal lure that awakening agents and mana stabilizers capable of surpassing the alchemical guild’s products would soon be exclusively distributed. Vivian, the youngest duchess who had stayed awake night after night to prevent her people from being slaughtered, snatched the hook with the desperation of a drowning woman.
A single letter reached my desk through several information brokers and back-alley contacts. Its sender’s name had been thoroughly erased. Yet the faint lily scent clinging to the parchment, the premium quality of the vellum, and—most of all—the delivery route my intelligence network had traced back pointed precisely to the rear gate of House Arzen.
I wish to confirm the truth of the rumors. I request a meeting at the designated location in the back alley at midnight.
The desperate attempt to keep the family’s fatal weakness hidden from other nobles was obvious. But the initiative at any negotiation table always shifts completely the moment you drag the opponent’s hidden weakness into the brightest light.
I picked up my pen and scrawled a blunt reply beneath the letter.
I will visit House Arzen formally to pay my respects at noon.
The most direct notification possible—striking straight at the weakness—secured my dominance from the very start of the deal.
The next day, just before noon. In front of the mansion’s enormous wardrobe.
The haughty master tailor from the Empire’s most exclusive atelier—the one who named his own price and whose garments were worth that price—owed me his life. No matter how packed his schedule, the moment an order from me arrived he would drop everything and pick up his shears first. The dark navy tailcoat Silvia had prepared fit my broad shoulders and chest with heavy, flawless friction that revealed just how meticulously it had been crafted.
In the mirror, a hideous knife scar slashed across the man’s cheek. Yet that very scar lent a precarious wildness to his otherwise refined features. Beside me, Elina had traded her battered combat breastplate for a deep wine-silk dress. Perhaps because it had been so long since she last wore anything so extravagant, the woman who had once been the reaper of the battlefield and later a slave in an iron cage looked awkward. She clutched the hem of her skirt and kept her gaze lowered.
But the instant I took a step, she erased every stray thought and followed behind me with perfectly controlled strides. Her posture declared that she would function as a flawless possession even in a social arena rather than a battlefield.
Before the massive front doors of House Arzen.
Instead of gaudy statues, heavy obsidian pillars that testified to centuries of history and antique chandeliers radiated an air of nobility. Yet everywhere in the mansion, the barren traces of continuous monster subjugation, accumulated fatigue, and manpower shortage were painfully obvious.
The Arzen retainers stood in formation without even having been told who was coming. The devil of the back alleys and the proud reaper of the battlefield. Their reputations and notoriety shook the entire Empire, yet the stage on which they operated lay far beyond ordinary people’s sight.
At the sight of the two visitors’ striking yet alien appearance, faint gasps escaped the bloodshot knights and maids. I leisurely ignored the curious gazes brushing my cheek and followed the guide toward the reception room.
At the head of the enormous reception room sat the second heroine who had received support from original readers almost equal to Elina’s—the one my younger brother had talked my ear off about. Vivian de Arzen.
She sat with brilliant golden hair cascading down her back. Her features were so exquisitely sculpted they seemed crafted by a god, perfectly matching the title of heroine who could tilt the world. Yet layered heavily over that splendor were the wretched traces of crushing overwork. Pale, bloodless skin. Dark circles beneath her eyes. The precarious figure of a genius who had carved away her own bones to protect her house.
I settled comfortably onto the sofa opposite her. She couldn’t even meet my eyes properly. Her cheeks flushed as she fidgeted with her hands. Her shoulders were drawn tight. Yet every time her tense body gave a tiny flinch, a voluptuous curve utterly mismatched to her delicate frame surged beneath her dress in a way that stole the breath.
A sensual physique in stark contrast to her passive, shy nature—the very imbalance that had driven the original readers wild.
“It is an honor to be invited, Your Grace.”
I offered her the most courteous and flawless noble etiquette. But her gaze had already slid past me to Elina behind my back, flooding with shock.
“Elina… my lady?”
The rumor that the Valois archduke’s daughter had fallen into a slave merchant’s hands had circulated long ago. Still, hearing a tragedy secondhand and witnessing the horrific reality in person carried entirely different weight. The sight of a once-proud knight who had commanded the Empire now standing with an expressionless face was grotesque.
In a voice thick with her characteristic shyness, Vivian barely managed to whisper, “Is… is your daily life… tolerable…?”
A careful inquiry after the well-being of an enemy house’s daughter. Elina, however, regarded her with steady, dry eyes and answered politely.
“I am now nothing more than Master Victor’s slave.”
“……!”
Vivian’s clear emerald eyes shook violently. She seemed to be re-measuring the depth of the man who had dismantled to the marrow the treasure of House Valois—the family whose daughter had once borne the title of the Empire’s reaper. The tips of her white fingers clenched the tablecloth until they trembled. As she swallowed and shrank into herself, the curves beneath her dress surged again.
At the perfect moment when my opponent’s mentality had collapsed, I drew an old leather ledger from my coat and gently slid it to the center of the table.
“Shall we get to the main topic?”
“……This is.”
“The organization that was once hired with someone’s enormous sum of gold to assassinate the former count and countess and their young lord.”
I looked straight into Vivian’s wavering green eyes and spat out the brutal truth.
“It was mine.”
“……!!”
In noble society, riddled with lies and deception, the courteous confession no one could have predicted froze the reception room as if time itself had stopped. Then, bestial roars of fury erupted from every side.
“You devilish bastard—how dare you—!”
The knights who had served the previous head drew their swords with bloodshot eyes. “The enemy of our lord has walked in and offered his own neck! Kill him at once!”
Amid the pouring killing intent I leaned comfortably against the sofa backrest and lifted my teacup with perfect ease.
“Contract killing is ultimately nothing more than a filthy chain by which those who hold vast capital yank the leashes of the powerless.”
“What nonsense are you—!”
“Even if I had refused the commission, they would simply have bought other blades and exterminated your house anyway.”
I set the teacup down and slowly scanned the frenzied knights one by one.
“Since I bore no particular grudge against House Arzen, I cut away exactly the amount they paid for. Nothing more. Afterward I rejected every additional request they failed to pay for. Therefore, is it not thanks to my strict business ethics that Your Grace is still alive today?”
The knights trembled with rage at the sophistry, clearly ready to stain their blades with my blood. But a thin yet unmistakably authoritative voice rang out.
“Everyone, sheathe your swords.”
Vivian, both fists clenched tightly, gave the order to her retainers.
“Rather than revenge for a past that cannot be undone…”
“Your Grace!”
“Saving the people of our territory who will be coughing blood and dying tomorrow is the duty of a family head.”
At the sight of their lord forcing herself to maintain reason even while swallowing her own blood, the retainers bit their lips in mortification yet slowly lowered their weapons. How many people could face the man who had annihilated their family and declare him the culprit with more difficulty than Vivian?
“You are… indeed the enemy of our house.”
Despite her shy demeanor, her green eyes flashed.
“Yet taking profit from you right now will help far more than making you pay for your sins in this room.”
A decent cost-benefit analysis in a very short time.
“In exchange for your contribution to nearly destroying Arzen… as an act of atonement…”
“……”
“Please supply us with awakening agents and mana stabilizers on a priority basis—and at a price far cheaper than market rate.”
A bold move trying to scrape margins to the bone. I maintained a courteous smile and raised an iron wall.
“Priority supply I can promise, Your Grace. However.”
“……”
“The production cost of the medicine is simply murderous. I cannot accommodate a slashed unit price.”
At my firm refusal Vivian gave an awkward smile and parted her lips.
“Ah… then.”
“……”
“I will exclusively supply the mana stones from our mine—the main material for your medicine—at a price far below market. With raw material costs plummeting, your profit margin will increase dramatically. In that case, surely you could lower the delivery price considerably?”
A counterpunch that seized control of the raw materials and swallowed the entire distribution margin. I had thought her merely a shy girl, but it seemed she had not obtained the seat of a great ducal house by biting her lip alone.
I drew a smile full of courtesy at the corner of my mouth and spoke softly.
“I am in awe of Your Grace’s insight. However.”
“……Yes?”
“Even if you receive the medicine, the combat strength of the knights who must immediately throw themselves into a monster field remains woefully insufficient, does it not?”
Vivian’s shoulders gave a tiny flinch.
“I will dispatch my firm’s top-grade combat slaves to fill the gaps left by knights who have collapsed from mana erosion and overwork. They can prove the medicine’s effectiveness in the field while helping construct your defensive line.”
At my suggestion Vivian’s cheeks flushed bright red. She fidgeted with her fingers, hesitated for a long while, then asked in a barely audible voice.
“The… price for that military support will be high, I imagine…?”
“I won’t charge an exorbitant—”
“Then the byproducts from the magical beasts my people hunt in the subjugation zones—grant our firm exclusive rights to all of them. Would that suffice as payment?”
The miraculous logic that offered back, as rental fees, the very byproducts my troops would risk their lives to obtain. A brilliant mind that could blush shyly while devouring someone else’s entire profit margin. I swallowed a dry laugh and rose slowly from my seat.
“It looks like we will make an excellent partnership. However, Your Grace.”
“……Ah.”
“Trembling fingertips. Deepened dark circles. A shallow pulse with an irregular heartbeat.”
At the barrage of observations her shoulders shrank once more.
“Now that you have become a perfect partner with my firm.”
“……”
“It would be a tremendous loss for me as well if my colleague’s brilliant mind were to collapse from overwork.”
I locked eyes with her and added in a courteous, low voice.
“I sincerely hope you will fully preserve that magnificent asset within the safe fence I will provide.”
A declaration of possessive desire that skirted the edge of rudeness yet pressed in heavily. To Vivian, who had been rotting alone among hyena-like nobles, the strange pressure appeared as a vast salvation that would protect her. A perfect misunderstanding by a genius trapped in a tragic narrative. Her emerald eyes wavered with dangerous intensity.
I took out a contract bearing a red seal and a pen, offering them to her. The contract was completed with the soft scratching of the nib across paper. After signing, Vivian lowered her eyes shyly and asked.
“Then… when can you begin supplying the medicine…?”
I gathered the completed contract and smiled.
“You sign first without even confirming the product’s quality?”
“……”
Her gaze quietly turned toward Elina, then rose to me.
“I am well aware of Victor Trading Company’s iron rule—that it dominates the market with overwhelming quality. I know the kind of person who has built such ferocious trust would not be foolish enough to ruin his own reputation by cheating a dying family over a single mine.”
She could spin a rather convincing story. With that face and diplomatic skill, she certainly deserved to occupy a heroine slot.
“I will deliver one hundred units each of low-grade awakening agents and low-grade mana stabilizers as the first shipment by next week.”
Only then did Vivian’s rigid shoulders finally slump in relief.
“Ah…”
A girl letting out a deep sigh of relief as though her family’s airway had finally opened. Perhaps because the extreme tension had finally released, her eyes that had been fixed on the table slowly rose and came to rest on the hideous scar slashing across my cheek.
“Um…”
The careful question from a young girl rather than the family head responsible for her people created a considerable gap. Her eyes, examining the scar, shimmered transparently as though clear tears might fall at any moment. Fidgeting with her white hands, cheeks delicately flushed, she asked in a tiny voice.
“Did it… hurt terribly…?”