“So you're telling me you expect us to repay this debt immediately?!”
The atmosphere inside the reception room was a complete disaster.
“If you won’t hand over the land, then hand over your corpse instead!”
The man facing the Guild Master was Rancy, Alpheus’s adjutant.
His first response was to sternly warn the man to stop shouting.
“Even if you took my corpse, you wouldn’t get a fair price for it. My hearing’s already getting damaged from all this yelling…”
The problem was that Rancy was far too polite.
He simply wasn’t suited for arguments like this.
When Alpheus had led his mercenary company, Rancy had handled all administrative and financial affairs. Naturally, after inheriting the marquisate, all management of the Marquis’s estate had fallen into his hands.
The problem was that he had been doing the job for exactly three days.
There wasn’t even a butler left behind to train him.
“The repayment date written in the contract passed long ago! If you can’t pay right now, then we’ll be taking the land in Erenta listed as collateral!”
There was no logical way to refute that.
The repayment date really had passed.
“Come on now, why are you acting like this? It’s just a contract! You always received payment in winter anyway!”
The head maid stepped forward and shouted.
At the phrase “just a contract,” Rancy nearly exploded.
He turned toward her and fired back.
“Then what was the contract for? Practicing signatures?”
Only after speaking did he remember that the head maid was supposedly on their side.
After three days of listening to nothing but nonsense, he had unconsciously categorized her as the opposition.
Thankfully, as always, Rancy’s furious rebuttal accomplished absolutely nothing.
It was immediately drowned out by the head maid’s louder voice.
“That’s how it worked last year! And the year before! And the year before that! We’ve used the same contract every year, so naturally we should follow the same precedent!”
Rancy desperately restrained himself from pointing out the obvious flaws in that logic.
Unfortunately, their opponent showed no such restraint.
“That’s because we were being generous! The situation is different now! The Monster Wave in the west is killing us too!”
Rancy closed his eyes in agony.
At that moment, he became certain that discovering his lord’s secret birth was not a blessing.
If I’d known it would come to this, it should’ve stayed a secret forever.
The House of Sayers had once been one of the Empire’s most distinguished families.
Now it had been reduced to this.
Three days ago, after the funeral of Marquis Sayers—
Before the coffin had even been buried, creditors had begun arriving.
“Veron now belongs to us. Here is the loan agreement in which Marquis Sayers used the Veron region as collateral.”
“W-What?”
“And take a look at this. According to the contract, the Marquis pledged Jezel Market Street as a penalty payment in case of breach.”
One by one, lands belonging to the Sayers Marquisate disappeared.
The contracts all contained a clause:
‘If either party dies, the contract shall be considered terminated due to the fault of the deceased party.’
As if that weren’t enough, the late Marchioness Sayers had accumulated enormous debts with the Central Bank.
Her extravagant spending had always been notorious.
Then, two years earlier, she had borrowed another huge sum to send Brisa to the Imperial Academy in the capital.
“This debt isn’t a personal one. It’s inherited by the children.”
“And the interest is monstrous. Best pay it off immediately.”
“Can’t I cover it with my own savings?”
“You can. But it’ll wipe out nearly everything you have.”
“So I’ll end up penniless.”
Alpheus shrugged.
“That’s fine. I’m still young.”
Fortunately, Alpheus had earned a substantial fortune during his successful years as a mercenary.
Unfortunately, Rancy was right.
After settling those debts, very little cash remained.
“So we’ve put out the immediate fires, but we’re still broke?”
“Broke doesn’t even begin to describe it. If we’re going to keep feeding the knights, every day counts. You’d better hurry to the Imperial Palace and bring back some kind of reward.”
Originally, Alpheus had entered the Northern Civil War as a mercenary.
There, he had fought alongside the Second Prince.
Together they brought the conflict to an end, and Alpheus was awarded the title of Hero of War.
The Second Prince thought highly of him and had even promised to petition the Emperor for a barony.
That was why they had been traveling to the capital together.
Then everything changed.
It was suddenly revealed that Alpheus was the hidden son of Marquis Sayers.
The journey was interrupted, and he rushed back home to attend the funeral before unexpectedly inheriting the marquisate.
“What? I have a twelve-year-old little sister?”
“Then she’s practically an orphan now!”
“I must inherit the title immediately and protect her with the warmth of a mother hen!”
That, however, proved to be the mindset of a commoner.
The servants of the estate viewed him very differently.
To them, he was simply:
“The commoner’s son who stole Lady Brisa’s inheritance.”
Before he even had time to fully experience their hostility, Alpheus left for the capital.
“I don’t need a title anymore, so I’ll just ask for compensation instead. His Highness would never be stingy toward a comrade who fought beside him through life and death.”
“Then hurry up and go. Begging is best done quickly.”
That very night, Alpheus departed with an elite escort, heading for the warp gate.
Even as he left, he worried about the little sister he had only recently discovered.
“Is there truly no other option?”
“Brisa lost her father today. I’m not sure it feels right leaving her behind alone.”
“There is another option.”
Rancy nodded thoughtfully.
“Our knight order could become a bandit gang and rob the Central Bank.”
“The Marquis just delivered them a fortune. Their vault should be nice and full tonight.”
“I’ll return as quickly as possible.”
After sending Alpheus away, Rancy remained behind, sorting through stacks of documents.
Only two pieces of land remain.
The previous Marquis had protected exactly two territories until the very end.
The Olive Plain, where the first Marquis Sayers personally planted olive trees...
...and the riverside region of Erenta, famous for its Marang fish harvests.
The olives generated little profit.
The quality of the fruit simply wasn’t very good.
Only the Marang fish brought in meaningful income.
From what Rancy could tell, the estate had survived by purchasing grain on credit from western merchants throughout the year, then repaying the debt with Marang fish catches at the start of winter.
Then why in the world were the contracts written like this?
Rancy wanted to cry.
If payment was always made in early winter, why not write that into the contract? Why put “immediate payment” instead?
The Guild Master spoke as though he were offering a generous compromise.
“Fine. You seem upset, so let’s do this.”
“The grain debt from last winter, plus the value of the next month’s grain shipments…”
“We’ll accept five years of fishing rights in Erenta as payment.”
Rancy’s vision darkened.
The war had ended.
Their once-glorious knight order no longer had easy opportunities to earn money.
Food reserves were running low.
That was precisely why Alpheus had been rushed off to secure funds.
But if we agree to this...
The territory will lose its only meaningful source of income for the next five years...
At that moment—
A silver-blonde girl entered the reception room with calm, confident steps.
“From now on, you’ll negotiate with me.”
It was Brisa.
Her expression was cold, composed, and utterly unshaken.
In Rancy’s mind, she was merely the spiritual leader of the Nonsense-Spouting Maid Alliance.
While he stood frozen in surprise, the maid accompanying Brisa suddenly kicked him in the shin.
“Gah!”
He glared at her in outrage.
The maid merely jerked her chin.
Move.
That was what she meant.
A maid.
A mere maid.
Treating the Marquis’s adjutant like this.
Rancy furiously protested.
“Were you a professional football player or something?”
The maid narrowed her eyes.
Then she began rotating her ankle as though warming up for a second kick.
Defeated, Rancy staggered away from the seat opposite the merchant.
Brisa gracefully took his place.
“My goodness.”
The maid whispered.
“You even went to the orphanage today, yet there isn’t a single wrinkle on your dress.”
“Amazing, my lady.”
As expected.
Rancy felt his opinion of the estate’s maids completely validated.
They come with a built-in feature that automatically produces nonsense whenever they open their mouths.
And the person they endlessly worshipped?
Brisa.
Naturally, her appearance during this crisis did not fill him with confidence.
Yet Brisa merely looked calmly at the Guild Master and asked:
“I’d like to know the current price of timber.”
...
Timber?
Why timber all of a sudden?
“The Monster Wave must have devastated the forests in the west, hasn’t it?”
The Guild Master blinked.
The Sayers territory didn’t even have a forest.