Translator: Nox

Chapter 20

Lifting her eyes slightly, she saw the man leaning back at an angle, sipping a drink.

As he brought his head forward from its tilted position, Seo-ah carefully spoke up.

“May I… ask your name?”

The answer came so easily it made her cautious attitude feel almost silly.

“Oscar.”

“…….”

“Oscar von Reinhardt.”

It was a grand-sounding name. It felt like it suited the man before her perfectly.

However, what captured Seo-ah’s attention in an instant was the surname that followed.

Reinhardt.

The moment she heard that elegant yet powerful name, a long breath escaped from deep within her. A tingling sensation, like food eaten after several missed meals melting directly into the bloodstream, spread instantly from her heart through her entire body.

Thank goodness.

Her Teacher’s words that the Wolves would come for her were correct. Though she never imagined they would find her this quickly.

Meanwhile, Oscar remained still, staring at the woman named Seo-ah.

A woman who claimed to be from a tiny country called Danguk, a place he had never even heard of.

Her attire was laughable, and he could sense she was paralyzed with fear, but her basic bearing was remarkably upright. Her straight shoulders, back, and neatly folded hands seemed to be the very definition of the "proper posture" his mother emphasized so much. She was so slender he wondered if she even had room for all her internal organs, yet she sat with such unwavering poise that he almost wanted to show her to his mother.

Furthermore, her exposed skin looked so delicate it seemed it would chafe and bleed at the slightest rub. Her small fingertips were the same; these were certainly not the hands of a laborer.

She was a woman full of contradictions.

Oscar leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. Then, he forcibly captured her gaze, which had been unable to meet his for even a second. Before those watery brown eyes could flee again, he threw out a remark like a surprise attack.

“You said you were grateful to me for saving you.”

“Yes.”

“Then I’d like to receive payment for that rescue.”

“…….”

Her already pale face turned even whiter. The more it did, the more cordially Oscar behaved.

“It’s nothing much. I have a few questions, and I’d like you to answer them honestly.”

She bit her trembling lip and nodded.

“You came from a far-off place called Danguk. Carrying the key to a Pelfe Bank vault.”

“…….”

A silence filled with their respective hidden motives swirled between them. Oscar waited quietly for his moment, like a wolf closing in on its prey, before asking casually.

“How did you come to possess it, and how did you get all the way here?”

That question was vital to both Oscar and Seo-ah.

It was even more so for Seo-ah.

Go directly to the Royal Pelfe Bank. Obtain the Acquisition Confirmation Certificate. Confirm that the person who comes for you is a Reinhardt.

If she had followed the steps correctly this far, this question was bound to follow.

“How did you acquire the key, and why did you come all this way?”

She couldn’t tell him that she was using herself as bait to find the biological father whose face and name she didn't even know.

She couldn't say she had come to get revenge using his power and to bring her grandfather back with her.

Then, what would make him take her in completely? What would make him think she was useful? How could she make him view her as a pawn that could be discarded without any messy aftermath?

“Money….”

“Money?”

Oscar asked with a smile. She nodded.

“Because I… need a lot of money.”

For now, she had to appear to be an incredibly simple person. She had to be beyond suspicion.

“Ah, you need money?”

He asked gently again, and Seo-ah replied, her hands tightly clasped over her knees.

“Yes.”

Through her downcast vision, she caught a glimpse of his beautiful blue eyes curved in a long arc.

***

Perhaps because he had been thrown into the world of business from a young age, Oscar had a habit of scrutinizing the person in front of him in minute detail. This scrutiny extended to their voice, their gaze, their hand gestures, the way they walked, and even the manner in which they entered a room.

Oscar sat relaxed across from Seo-ah, already on his second drink. In contrast, Seo-ah had only managed a few sips. It was likely because his constant staring made her uncomfortable.

Regardless, Oscar continued to watch her. Since she wouldn't meet his eyes, he didn't have to worry about where he was looking, which made things easy.

Partly it was his habit of observation, but he was also finding it quite entertaining.

First of all, her attitude was interesting.

She sat so precisely and without any swaying that he felt he could bet his entire fortune that even the position of her toes under the table was perfectly aligned. Furthermore, the way her fingertips moved as she examined the contract was exactly like the "dancing" his mother was always going on about. It was as if the air resistance around her hands was different—they moved with a slow, weighted grace. And judging by her flushed, reddened face, she was clearly very hot, yet she didn't fan herself even once.

Setting aside her clothes, which looked over twenty years old.

She clearly showed signs of a refined upbringing, so how was he to explain her inability to even look someone in the eye? It felt more like a habit than mere fear, and it was too extreme to be just a cultural difference. She was even fluent in the Norfolk common tongue, both in speaking and writing.

Was she perhaps the illegitimate child of a noble who had grown up walking on eggshells?

“How is the content of the contract?”

“Ah….”

“If there are any clauses you don’t like, tell me.”

He was prepared to change almost any clause if necessary.

Except for the clause stating she would give him a certain document inside the vault, and the condition that she would remain under his protection until the moment the vault was opened.

Actually, that wasn't a condition.

No matter how much the woman struggled, he had no intention of letting her go. So, while he was being kind and polite, it would be best if she remained obedient. For his sake, and for her own.

Just as his cold gaze, contrasting with his gentle face, landed on the contract in Seo-ah’s hands, she spoke.

“It says you will pay 500 million Kerete per week in exchange for my protection….”

“Hmm?”

“How much value does 500 million Kerete hold?”

Oscar let out a soft chuckle and nodded slowly. He glanced out the window, then at his own clothes, before speaking.

“By the standards of Norfolk’s upper class, a house large enough to be called a mansion in a royal capital costs about 10 billion Kerete. Ah, excluding things called castles. Those are usually priceless.”

“I see.”

“Anyway, maintaining such a place would cost about 400 to 500 million Kerete a year. A suit like the one I’m wearing is somewhere between 5 and 10 million Kerete. But that’s for the upper class; the average annual income for the middle class is around 50 million Kerete.”

“…….”

“You’ll find out when we go to Pelfe Bank later, but it will take at least six months to open the vault, no matter how fast we go. If you stay under my protection during that time and receive the price of a mansion in return… it’s not a bad deal, is it? Combined with the money inside the vault, it’ll be quite a sum.”

“…….”

“Is it not enough?”

Oscar asked in a soothing tone, one so gentle it sounded ridiculous even to his own ears.

If she said it wasn't enough, he could just add more. He spent hundreds of millions in a single night on the idiots of Pelfe; this was nothing.

As he thought this, Seo-ah, who had been staring at the contract with a blank face, gave a small shake of her head.

“No. It is not.”

Then, she briefly looked up before casting her eyes down again.

“That is quite enough.”

As she set the contract down on the table, the edges where she had been holding it were wrinkled and warped. Seeing the tension marked on the paper, the corners of Oscar’s lips quirked upward.

“Very well. If you ever feel it’s insufficient, just let me know.”

He pulled a fountain pen from his breast pocket and held it out.

“Then, shall we sign?”

Seo-ah looked at the fountain pen and cautiously rose from her seat. Then, she held out both hands, neatly cupped together.

Oscar’s gaze momentarily landed on her joined hands.

For someone who had traveled from a distant land out of a desperate need for money, her hands were slender and soft, without a single callus.

When he placed the fountain pen on them, her cupped hands closed gently around it.

Holding the pen, the woman sat back down, but instead of opening the cap, she simply stared at what was in her hands. As he watched to see what she was doing, she merely examined it timidly from various angles. Not by rolling the pen around, but by tilting her head this way and that as if she were looking at a treasure in a museum.

“Is this your first time seeing a fountain pen?”

“…….”

“It is your first time.”