Chapter 136

A ding, ding, ding sound was heard.

It came from within Kukulo’s clothes.

It was a small, portable communication mirror.

Shion gestured with his chin.

“You’ve got a call. Answer it.”

“…It’s me.”

Kukulo stealthily took out the communication mirror.

Even so, he kept glancing at Shion.

It was an absurd demand to not be anxious in front of an enemy who could snap his neck at any moment.

The person on the other side of the communication mirror was Onseu Om.

He had told him to call immediately after taking the people at the Verchello flour mill hostage.

“Onseu Om. Is the job finished?”

[Brass Arm is dead.]

It was an unfamiliar voice.

But to Shion, it was not unfamiliar; it was the voice of the jade-eyed man.

Shion nodded as if he had expected it. He hadn't been worried in the slightest from the beginning.

That was because he was Amethus.

[Tell my master. That Verchello, that Lady Serena, is safe.]

“What? Who are you…….”

The communication was abruptly cut off.

Kukulo stammered in bewilderment, and Shion nodded his head.

“Understood, Amethus.”

“Uh…….”

“He says Brass Arm is dead. What else is left, Kukulo?”

Shion slowly took a step.

With each step he took, Kukulo’s complexion turned deathly pale, unlike that of a living person. It was the same for Pneuve and Tibel standing beside him.

“I’m still willing to send you off without pain.”

“No, no! Wait a minute…!”

“Stop talking. If I get annoyed, I might send you off painfully.”

An invisible hand circled in the air.

It was invisible to everyone except Shion, but they could feel that something was drifting there.

Meh took a few steps back as if it had nothing to do with them.

“This is the end, Del Conti.”

Shion had just defeated the bronze giant.

Pneuve Frieira and Tibel Bartole couldn't help but feel fear.

“…Please wait.”

It was an old voice.

Shion paid it no mind and continued walking.

However, a figure jumped out, grabbed his ankle, and shouted again.

“Please wait!!!”

“Ah. I was trying to pretend I didn’t hear.”

Now I have to drag this out again.

Shion grumbled, and Kukulo blankly raised his head.

The old man who appeared was a very familiar face.

Kukulo Del Conti muttered without realizing it.

“Father…?”

A hooked nose and thin lips.

An old man who had always appeared strict and dignified.

But now, he had thrown away all pretense of decorum and was prostrated, clinging to Shion’s ankle.

Shion sighed and shook his head.

“What brings you all the way here, Mr. Conteano Del Conti?”

***

Conteano Del Conti was Kukulo’s father.

He was the former lord of Del Conti and once Verchello’s accountant.

Now an old man over seventy, he knelt before Shion without a hint of hesitation.

“Please save my son, Mr. Shion.”

“No.”

Shion was also without hesitation.

Whether the old man knelt or not, his heart did not waver in the slightest.

Because he had never told Conteano to kneel.

“I gave your son plenty of chances. But he kept messing around until the end.”

Kukulo Del Conti was a troublesome person.

Even more so because he was vaguely resourceful.

If left alone, he would surely run wild, vowing revenge.

If completely crushed, he wouldn't be able to, but Shion wondered if he really had to go that far.

Considering what Kukulo had done to Verchello, he wouldn’t feel wronged even if he died here.

“No matter how much you beg, your son dies here today.”

“Mr. Shion, you are mistaken.”

Conteano Del Conti spoke while still on his knees.

His gaze was intense.

It flashed as if he were a spirited youth.

“I did not come to ask a favor.”

“Then?”

“I came to make a deal.”

The old cuckoo was dignified.

“A deal? Interesting.”

Shion found himself intrigued.

Since he had little contact with this person before his regression, this whole situation was a first for him.

“But what kind of deal? I’ve already acquired all of Del Conti’s external businesses, and the rest will soon be in my hands. What on earth do you have to make a deal with?”

“You already know.”

Conteano opened his palm.

“This hand.”

“It’s empty.”

“But the calluses are thick.”

Hmm. Shion stroked his chin.

“Del Conti’s businesses are spread throughout Bururade. With what kind of manpower do you plan to run them?”

“Didn’t you know? I bought your workers and employees along with them.”

“They are not slaves. They are hired freemen. They won’t blindly obey just because you command them. Especially not the pen-pushers.”

Even on his knees, his words were uninhibited.

It was because he knew the value of the deal he was proposing.

His age and depth were different from Kukulo’s.

“Del Conti’s businesses have a lot of pen-pushers in particular. If you take them over this way, you won’t be able to maintain the scale of the business. It will shrink to less than half its size in no time.”

“Keep talking.”

“But if I, this Conteano Del Conti, manage it, the story will be different.”

It was a valid point.

If it were Conteano’s words, Del Conti’s businesses would have no reason to refuse.

And since he would know the businesses better than anyone, management would be smooth.

“So the old former lord who has already retired is willing to attend to a young whippersnapper?”

“I was originally a stable hand. Is it so unfamiliar?”

“How can I trust you and entrust the business to you?”

“If I do anything foolish, my son and I will die, won’t we?”

Shion chuckled.

He quite liked the attitude of speaking calmly without fear of death.

The world was indeed wide.

He had never expected to encounter such a spirit.

Conteano interpreted Shion’s chuckle as a positive sign.

“I have prepared one more piece of evidence you can trust.”

He reached into his bosom.

Shion didn’t stop him.

He didn’t look like he would do anything foolish, and if he did, he could just break his wrist with ‘Fantasy Finger’.

Conteano took out a few sheets of paper.

“What does this look like to you?”

It was old paper.

It looked to be decades old.

Yet, because it was a special paper used for contracts, it had not lost its shape.

Shion narrowed his eyes and read the contents.

“It’s a loan certificate.”

“That’s right. It is proof that a very long time ago, I, Conteano Del Conti, lent Lord Angelo one hundred and twenty gold coins. In today’s money, that would be about two thousand Maesh gold coins.”

“…Angelo? Don’t tell me, Angelo de Verchello?”

“Lady Serena’s grandfather.”

Shion’s eyes shot up in surprise.

Conteano had lent money to Angelo and a large sum of about two thousand Maesh gold coins at that.

It was something he had never heard of even before his regression.

Shion read down the loan certificate.

“Angelo couldn’t repay the money?”

“He had no choice. It wasn’t an amount that the post-war Verchello could handle.”

“So you took the business as stated in the loan certificate.”

The regressor prince’s eyes shone blue.

“People say that Del Conti took advantage of Angelo de Verchello’s death in the war with Cordis to snatch away the business. I thought so too.”

“Because I let them talk that way.”

It was a stigma.

It was different from the truth.

But Conteano had never once denied it.

He let everyone point fingers at Del Conti and curse them for shamelessly pushing out their master.

No, he even spread the rumors further.

The rumor that they had grown their body like a brood parasite was actually beneficial to Del Conti.

They might not have gained virtue, but they didn’t need to prove their ruthlessness.

“So you were actually a loyal subject?”

“No, a cuckoo.”

Conteano’s old eyes took on a sad light.

“I had neither the resolve to take the whole nest nor the loyalty to serve until the very end, so what could I be if not a cuckoo?”

“You have a smooth tongue.”

“I understand. There is nothing more unpleasant to hear than an old man’s excuses. I myself shudder at the shameful sight of brazenly bringing out a secret I intended to take to my grave.”

Hmph. Shion snorted.

Conteano quietly bowed his head.

It would be a lie to say he had no loyalty.

But without taking over Verchello’s business, Del Conti had no way to survive either.

He managed the family with the last resort of not directly touching Verchello.

Serena might not have known, but he had even supported Verchello up until her father, Angelo’s son’s time.

After handing over the family headship to Kukulo, he could do nothing.

“Still, this certificate is practically Verchello’s last weakness. If it were made public, their reputation would be tarnished.”

He was right.

But Conteano set fire to the loan certificate without hesitation.

“But that weakness is now gone.”

With a whoosh, the proof of his youthful loyalty turned to ashes and disappeared.

“So please, save my son.”

“Hmm…….”

Shion furrowed his brow.

He was conflicted because it was something he hadn’t known before his regression.

‘The fact that I didn’t know, does that mean he took it to his grave back then too…?’

Conteano’s attitude did not feel like a lie.

Besides, the offer to manage all of Del Conti’s businesses was tempting.

With his family’s lives on the line, there would be no worry of him trying anything funny.

“If you become Verchello’s accountant, your salary will be the same as everyone else’s.”

“I am overpaid.”

“And your main duty will be to make the businesses I took from your family into legitimate Verchello assets.”

“My heart is too old to struggle that much.”

Such a smooth tongue. Shion smiled faintly.

It was as good as proof that he had accepted the offer.

Conteano bowed his head once more.

“I won’t even ask you to guarantee my son’s safety. Just please turn a blind eye to him escaping from here.”

“To gain the Del Conti family whole by saving Kukulo… I guess I received an excessive price for his life.”

Shion turned his eyes.

Kukulo Del Conti was still frozen.

“Kukulo, thank your father.”

Shion held up three fingers.

“I’ll give you three days.”

He had made up his mind.

“Leave Merion, leave the Bururade Peninsula, with those two over there. If you cross paths with me after three days, know that I’ll snap your neck.”

***

“My money, my family, my Merion…….”

Kukulo Del Conti muttered like a madman.

Even so, he could not stop walking.

The fear that his neck might be snapped at any moment kept his feet moving.

Even as he gasped for breath as if he would collapse from exhaustion, the muttering continued to spill out.

“My Del Conti…….”

His thin lips mumbled incessantly.

“My, my…….”

He had lost everything.

It was all taken away by Shion.

He had even witnessed his own father, whom he had respected and even feared his entire life, bowing his head and begging a young man not even twenty years old and yet, the fact that he was running away because he wanted to live was unbearably pathetic.

He didn't even feel the will to take revenge.

Because he had lost so much so suddenly, fear preceded resentment. It would probably be like that for the rest of his life.

Whenever anger tried to rise from ruminating on his loss, fear would suddenly shake his heart.

The rest of his life just seemed pitch black.

Tears flowed endlessly.

“My thing…….”

Only then did Kukulo Del Conti realize.

He had no choice but to realize it, as tears and grief overwhelmed him.

“Was it not mine…?”

He came to a halt.

Ah, it was afternoon.

The sun was still bright and beautiful.

Birds were chirping and the leaves were lush.

Kukulo had lost everything, yet they were still beautiful.

There was a feeling of something falling away.

It felt as if several of the most important beams in his heart had suddenly disappeared.

Were they what one might call obsession?

Greed, stubbornness, or arrogance?

He didn't know when they might invade again, but at least for now, they were gone.

Instead, with a feeling of relief, he opened his mouth.

“Tibel.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“My lord is…….”

A laugh escaped him, wondering what he was saying in his state of having lost everything.

He laughed like a madman, chuckling.

No, he probably was a little mad.

Pneuve and Tibel looked at him with worried eyes.

“You always used to talk about a warm southern island.”

“…You remembered?”

“Why did you think I would have forgotten?”

Kukulo swept his hair back.

“I have a villa in the Hanchamus Islands. I think I bought a few small shops with it too. It’s in my name, not Del Conti’s, so it wouldn’t have been taken.”

Tibel Bartole pushed back her sweat-soaked hair.

She was visibly flustered by Kukulo’s unexpected words.

“It should be enough to live on from now on. If you’re okay with it, won’t you come with me?”

“My lord…….”

Kukulo turned his head.

“Of course, if you’re okay with it too, Pneuve.”

“…Of course, I am. It’s not like I have anywhere else to go.”

“I’m grateful for that.”

Tibel raised her eyes.

She felt truly grateful.

She had never thought Kukulo would remember her talk of wanting to go to a southern island, nor that he would worry about them even in this situation.

That was why her grief was deeper.

“My lord… I’m sorry, but it’s too late.”

She saw figures moving among the trees.

It was clear where they came from.

They must have come from the place that sent her.

From east of the Great Mountain Range, from the Cordis Empire.

“They’ve come.”