Chapter 107 [part 1]
Negotiations with the king were easy.
Kwiz usually wasn’t pleased with his brother-in-law whose temperament was different from his father-in-law, and he was personally fond of Roy. In light of his experience of being guarded by Roy for over a year, he believed that Roy was not a brute that would kill people for no reason.
So when Hugo said that he would help with the chronic financial deficit, Kwiz gladly took the bait.
“But did Sir. Krotin say that he would do it? You people really…”
To nobles, honor was more important than their life. Knights were also the same. They couldn’t even conceive the idea of saving their life by abandoning their honor. Kwiz couldn’t understand both Roy, who agreed to such a thing and Hugo, who suggested such a plan.
Roy, who would recover fine even if he stepped in filthy dog shit. Kwiz, who could throw away his life for honor, like it was a worthless thing. They both stood at two extremes. Understanding each other would never be possible.
“There is one condition. It’s not enough with only this king agreeing to it. If my father-in-law agrees, then this king will also agree. As for persuading my father-in-law, I’ll leave that to Gong.”
“I understand. I have a condition too. Please turn a blind eye towards the truth of this incident.”
The dead could not speak, the less mouths that knew, the more secrets could be kept. Hugo was not troubled at all by the amount of effort he had to put in to completely detach his wife from this incident. He wanted to protect her like a flower cultivated in a greenhouse. He didn’t want her to have even a small scratch.
His wife was the Duchess and the Lady of the Taran House, whose every action and conduct drew people’s attention. As long as you were famous in the social circles, rumors that followed after your name were endless. It was something you had put up with unless it was a fatal scandal, but Hugo planned to thoroughly block any reason for his wife to receive public rebuke and be gossiped about due to an unsavory incident.
“Hm? Then you mean this king won’t know why Sir. Krotin did such a thing?”
Hugo ignored Kwiz’s grumbling that he was so curious that he couldn’t sleep.
“I will talk to Ramis Gong and inform Your Majesty of the outcome.”
* * *
Hugo promptly met with the Duke of Ramis that evening. The two sat opposite each other in an exclusive aristocrat club in the city. After exchanging brief greetings, Hugo immediately proceeded to the main subject.
He handed the three documents that he brought with him to the Duke of Ramis.
“The first document contains information about the day of the incident according to the testimony of my knight who is currently imprisoned. You will be able to know why your son became like that.”[1]
Hugo judged that he could not use money to negotiate with the Duke of Ramis. He was not someone that would exchange his son’s life for money.
He watched as the Duke of Ramis’ face darkened and clouded over as he read the document.
The Duke of Ramis thought that there was something off about David’s death, but he could not had guess that it was connected to the Duchess at all.
It’s not like he could ask his dead son, so he could not figure out what his son was trying to do in the princess’ break room or why he gave the magical tool to the Countess and could only wake up from restless sleeps and pound his chest in frustration.
Based on Roy’s testimony, the documents presented a number of circumstantial evidences to support it, with a recorded trail of David and Anita’s continuous meetings, information gotten from the people planted in the bar, and a track record of David making passes at the Duchess and so on and so forth.
‘That foolish boy. How could he…’
Sadly, the Duke of Ramis could not defend his son and say that his son would never do such a thing. He didn’t think that they had made up false evidence with the intention of slandering his son, instead he thought that this sort of thing was definitely something his son could do.
When he realized that, the Duke of Ramis felt deeply ashamed that he had raised his son wrong. The years he had lived so far, suddenly seemed in vain.
However, the Duke of Ramis was an experienced politician. He would never reveal his thoughts on the surface.
“I won’t say that the contents of this are fabrications. I admit my son’s mistakes. But I do not think it is enough to warrant for a Duke’s heir to suffer such a miserable death and be gossiped about by everyone.”
The corner of Hugo’s lips went up slightly.
‘Mistake? You should thank your ancestors instead, that your son died so unexpectedly. If that bastard was alive, I would have cut off all his limbs and turned him into pig feed.’
If he could not kill the bastard for practical reasons and as time passed, the bastard had actually succeeded the title of Duke, Hugo would have used all of his power to destroy the Ramis family. It was right to look at it as the death of that guy right now, was actually the guidance of their ancestors, looking over the future of the Ramis family from the sky.
“Please, read the next document. I wonder if that could also be called a mistake.”
The next document contained information about the youth association that was constantly being monitored. It had evidence that David was responsible for the funding of the youth association and results from the investigation of how dangerous the individuals that were leading the youth association were.
Of course, the youth association was still only a small organization and the chief executives were only just beginning to wriggle out from the shadows.
The numerous pieces of plausible evidence that made them out to be extremely dangerous elements, was the work of the Taran Duke’s Information Division.
To verify the authenticity of the document, one would have to spend a lot of time and effort. To the eyes of those looking at the document right now, they could only see it as the truth.
The contents detailed that the Taran family were suspicious of a dangerous organization and as they investigated, an enormous root was gradually revealed and when they dug even more, they discovered that David was the key figure funding the organization.
As he was reading the document, the Duke of Ramis’ eyes shook tremendously. The Duke of Ramis also knew of the New Nation Youth Association[2]. He had believed his son when he said that he had washed his hands off them, but had no idea that his son was avoiding his eyes and funding them instead.
‘This scoundrel is determined to destroy our family.’
Disappointment and anger towards his son surged inside the Duke of Ramis. The family that he had protected and cultivated his entire life was more important to the Duke than his own life, let alone his son’s life.
For the Duke, his family was the most important thing. The reason why he could be so level-headed about his son’s death was because his son was pushed back that much on the Duke’s list of priorities.
There was another son to continue the family. There was no issue of the succession being broken off. What the Duke of Ramis was concerned about, was that his son’s death would damage the family’s honor.*
“I’m sure you can predict how His Majesty will react if he were to be shown the contents of that document.” (Hugo)
The Duke of Ramis heavily closed his eyes.
The King had a heartless side to him. He would never save anyone that he had deemed to be an enemy. He killed many of his brothers, defended his position as the Crown Prince, eventually, he ascended to the throne and would not hesitate to spill blood to keep the throne.
If the King learnt of the contents of the document, even if he ignored it right now, he would continue to have doubts in his heart. He needed the Duke of Ramis’ power right now, so he would leave it alone, but someday, when the power of his royal-in-laws became burdensome, the doubts in his heart would become distrust and he would strike at the Duke.
Translator’s Corner:
[1] Re: You’ll be know why your son ended up dead.
[2] As I mentioned before, the issue here is ‘New Nation’. The word used here represents the ideology of a better, divine nation. It is usually connected to the idea of overthrowing the current reign for a better one aka rebellion.
* Damn. And they call Hugo cold-hearted.