Previously
Ariella humiliates Bivar by revealing she used her personal dowry for the repairs and already reported the matter to the Demon King, forcing the vampire to retreat in rage. Later, while studying the territory's complex financial ledgers, Ariella shares a magical tea with Philly that clears her mind.
Harsh words slipped out between Ariella’s lips unbidden.
“Could you really have gorged yourself on this? You bloodsucking bastard.”
“Pardon? Was there something wrong with the tea?”
As Ariella set her teacup down with a sharp clatter, Philly asked in confusion.
Ariella rose without answering and began arranging the ledgers on the table—stacks that towered higher than her height—in chronological order. Mesmerized by her resolve, Philly helped her.
The moment they opened corresponding pages in each volume, a bizarre, hard-to-swallow pattern began to emerge.
Records of repairs on a particular bridge, and the staggering sums spent on them.
“Found it!”
Once again, her intuition had hit the mark.
Ariella pointed triumphantly at the papers—the official receipts and invoices attached as evidence within the ledgers.
“Philly, do you remember this bridge?”
“Huh? That’s the one we saw together. The bridge that collapsed again and was being rebuilt.”
It was the very bridge that had forced Ariella to take a longer detour when she went slime hunting, because it was still under construction.
Philly read the section Ariella was pointing to.
“Wait a minute… It was rebuilt last year, underwent maintenance the year before that, was rebuilt five years ago… and even ten years ago… What on earth is going on here?”
Philly vaguely remembered the site, but she never imagined it was this terrible. That bridge had been repaired over and over, only to collapse each and every time.
Perhaps it was shoddy workmanship due to a lack of skill or funds—at least, that was what Ariella had initially assumed.
‘But what if the shoddiness was intentional?’
Ariella tapped one of the line items with her finger.
“Look. It says they spent fifty thousand Ciel repairing this bridge just last year. That makes no sense. I saw the construction site with my own eyes.”
Even with the most generous estimates, building a bridge of that modest length and width could never cost fifty thousand Ciel.
By Ariella’s calculation, that amount was enough to distribute free food to every single resident in the territory for days.
“Is there an itemized breakdown for this fifty thousand Ciel?”
“Yes, I’ll fetch it right away.”
A short while later, as Ariella reviewed the additional documents, she spoke each word as though chewing it up and spitting it out.
“Just as I thought. This is suspicious. It makes no sense whatsoever.”
During the library repairs, the head butler had recorded every material purchase with meticulous transparency. For instance, he had bought a bundle of timber for a single Ciel.
Yet when Ariella examined the official records of past public works in the territory, the numbers were outrageously inflated.
That very same bundle of timber was logged at ten or even twenty times its actual price.
According to Philly, timber was abundant throughout the demon realm and consistently supplied, meaning its price hardly fluctuated.
“This simply makes no sense.”
If anything, for projects far larger than a simple library restoration, bulk purchases should have brought the material costs down, not up.
Yet the Demon King’s castle had been buying materials at exorbitant prices for a very long time—even before Ludvic took the throne.
Ariella’s eyes flashed with a sharp glint.
“Someone in this territory has been ruthlessly embezzling colossal amounts of money, haven’t they?”
Ariella went straight to the Demon King. The posture she held before him radiated sheer confidence and triumph.
“What is it this time? If it’s about the library, I’ve already granted permission. And what are those scrolls you’re carrying?”
Then the Demon King’s expression shifted abruptly.
“Did you discover something?”
Ariella’s eyes burned with a blazing fire, just as they had the day they first met on the deck of that ship, when she had passionately pitched her contract to him.
“Yes!”
She understood all too well how the Demon King had survived. Anyone who stood in his path was incinerated and rooted out without mercy, and that ruthless clarity was what had brought him to where he stood today.
And now, traces of parasites hollowing out the Demon Realm’s coffers had been uncovered. Left alone, they would bring down the entire territory.
There was no way the Demon King would simply sit by and do nothing.
Ariella spoke with resolute conviction.
“There is a thief. A vermin that must be burned and cut down at once.”
A short while later, Ariella arrived alone at the riverbank.
None of Richmond’s skeleton guards flanked her, nor had any of the castle soldiers who guarded the Demon King’s fortress come along.
“Hey, watch what you’re doing over there!”
“How many times must I tell you not to stack the wood here? Who’s in charge?”
“Send me another Goblin, quickly!”
It was the bridge construction site, where work was still underway. The very bridge she and Philly had passed on their way to hunt slimes.
The same bridge that had collapsed repeatedly and been rebuilt time and again—the one Ariella had caught suspicious discrepancies for in the accounting ledgers.
“Hm? Who’s that?”
All the laborers on the construction site were Kobolds.
“Wait, a human?”
“Unauthorized personnel are forbidden! Get out right now!”
“Huh? Wait, her face looks familiar!”
“I know who she is! That’s the Demon King’s contractor!”
“Ah! She’s the one who made that marvelous thing out of slimes, right?”
“Why did she come all alone, though? Isn’t she scared?”
Ignoring their murmurs, Ariella marched forward with steady strides and spoke in a commanding tone.
“Bring me the person in charge. I have something to say to him.”
A moment later, a Kobold stepped out from the ranks of workers. He was the site supervisor, and unlike the other scrawny Kobolds, his belly jutted out like a small hill.
“…What is it?”
His voice dripped with cold irritation. Eyeing Ariella from head to toe, he muttered under his breath,
“We’re worked half to death as it is. What’s all this racket about?”
He had clearly heard who she was, yet he showed not an ounce of respect toward the Demon King’s contractor.
Ariella’s gaze upon him was every bit as frigid. And it was not simply because of his insolence.
‘If my hunch is right…’
This Kobold was the nominal manager of the bridge construction project. Word was that last year’s construction had taken place under his supervision as well.
‘He has to be in on it, too.’
With that certainty settling in her chest, she spoke without preamble.
“I want to inspect the condition of the timber meant for building the bridge. Right now.”
“What?”
The Kobold supervisor’s expression shifted in an instant. The languid, arrogant veneer vanished, his face filling with wary suspicion.
“The timber? Why the timber?”
“I told you, there’s something I need to verify.”
“Tell me first on whose authority you’ve come—”
“No need. Step aside.”
Ariella had no intention of drawing out the conversation. Stepping right past him, she marched toward her destination.
Ahead of her stood stacks of lumber slated for the bridge. Behind her, the Kobold supervisor’s voice rose in a frantic, shrill squeal.
“What are you waiting for? Stop that madwoman before she gets any closer!”
“B-but she’s the Demon King’s contractor! How could we possibly…”
“I said stop her right now! Or are you lot fine with losing your livelihood? Huh?!”
A faint smirk curled the corners of Ariella’s lips where the supervisor could not see.
‘Just as I thought.’
Word of her status as the Demon King’s contractor had already spread everywhere. The Kobold laborers dared not block her path, merely shuffling in place with anxious hesitation.
Watching this unfold sent the supervisor into a frenzy.
“You useless fools! What are you doing? I told you to stop her!”
Yet the workers remained frozen in place like statues. In the end, the supervisor had no choice but to chase after Ariella himself.
Given the stark difference in their leg lengths, it took him some time to catch up.
Just as Ariella went to pull back the tarp covering the timber, the supervisor shrieked,
“I told you not to touch anything without permission!”
Ariella replied without looking back.
“And why is that?”
The supervisor stammered, falling silent for a moment as he scrambled for an excuse, before shouting as though an idea had struck him,
“Because… because these materials are extremely delicate! You know nothing about construction! If you touch them without any expertise, you could ruin everything!”
“Nonsense.”
“W-what?!”
“Ridiculous. These aren’t magical ingredients; they’re just piles of timber. How delicate could they possibly be?”
Without hesitation, Ariella yanked the tarp away. The supervisor’s face drained of all color, turning ash gray.
Examining the wood, she muttered,
“Just as I thought.”
She then turned to one of the laborers standing nearby.
“I’ll be borrowing this for a second.”
“Huh? Th-that’s… aah!”
She snatched the axe from his hands without waiting for permission. Then, without a shred of hesitation, Ariella swung it straight into the log.
“Nooo!”
The supervisor shrieked behind her.
Crack—!
“Gah!”
“What in the world?!”
Commotion erupted among the Kobold workers. With a single strike of Ariella’s axe, the thick log had split apart with suspicious ease.
“Does that human possess monstrous strength?”
“No, that’s not it. Look at where it broke!”
Had it been struck with pure, disciplined force, the timber would have sheared away in a clean, defined cut. But this was different. The wood had not been cleaved; it had shattered.
The fractured surface was thoroughly mangled, splinters jutting out in ragged, uneven shards.
And inside…
Ariella clicked her tongue and spoke with utter disgust.
“Just as I suspected. Sound on the outside, but completely rotten within.”
Not stopping there, she swung the axe again with zealous momentum, relentlessly smashing into the other piles of wood.
It was a bizarre sight. A woman clad in a dress covering her from neck to hem, with not an inch of bare skin exposed, wielding a heavy woodcutter’s axe with fierce abandon as though she were reveling in it.
Her footwork was so light and deft it almost looked like a dance.
Thwack—! Shatter—!
The outcome was identical each time. Nearly all the lumber was rotten through.
Once she finished her inspection, Ariella fixed the supervisor with a piercing glare. As for the Kobold, his face contorted in stunned panic, his mind spiraling into chaos.
‘This is… utter ruin!’
A secret kept hidden for long years had been exposed out of nowhere by a human girl who didn’t hesitate to lay it bare without mercy.
‘How did she know?’
This could not be a mere coincidence or a wild accusation thrown out on a whim. She had undoubtedly come here knowing everything.
If this was reported up the chain, the Kobold would undoubtedly face severe punishment.
And because a scheme of this magnitude was far too large for one individual to orchestrate and execute alone, the Demon King would surely launch an investigation to uncover who was pulling the strings.
That prospect terrified the Kobold far more than the punishment itself. His “true master” was someone who would discard him in a heartbeat, severing him just as a lizard cut off its own tail without a second thought.
‘Since it’s come to this…!’
The Kobold gritted his teeth.
‘I have to run!’
Yet just as he prepared to bolt, Ariella’s deep, unreadable gaze tracked him, looking as though she could read every single thought racing through his head.
END