Chapter 65
65
'Oh no.'
Dubled was not a family that loved each other just because they were family.
The previous head saw his children as mere tools of power, and Dad slaughtered his ten siblings, leaving only two.
What I said probably wouldn't make sense to Javelin.
'This is bad. I was trying to get along, but I only made her angrier.'
I desperately made excuses.
"I, I won't make Javelin angry anymore. I'll be really quiet. I'll be quiet so that I don't catch Javelin's eye. I'll walk carefully so I don't bother you, and I'll only eat a little! So, can't you forgive me..."
When I looked up with a desperate face, Javelin's eyes narrowed.
"You are..."
"......?"
"......Go in."
Javelin was about to say something, but she walked past me.
After she completely disappeared, I sighed.
Leah, with a touched face, muttered, "My Young Lady, because of me..."
'No, it's not all because of Leah...'
But I'm used to this misunderstanding now. Now she's going to shout, "Thank you!" and hug me.
I spread my arms with a resigned expression. As expected, Leah hugged me tightly as always.
Thump, thump, thump, thump!
Administrators hurriedly ran down the hallway.
"Your Excellency, the Empress Dowager has collapsed!"
Hearing the loud shout, I grabbed Leah's collar tightly.
'It has begun.'
Adolph hurried to the Imperial Palace to check the situation. The Imperial doctor was examining her, but the Empress Dowager showed no signs of waking up.
"What happened?"
When he asked, the Imperial doctor was at a loss.
"I don't know at all. Even a week ago, she was healthier than usual. She said that the joint pain she often complained of had disappeared, so she often took walks, and her complexion was very good, so why did this suddenly happen..."
"Could it be poison?"
"No poison was detected in any of the tests."
The Imperial doctor asked the Empress Dowager's maid.
"Did she perhaps eat something wrong?"
"That can't be! Her Majesty's food is always tasted. If there was a problem, the taster would have known first."
The maid jumped up, afraid of being blamed for not taking good care of the Empress Dowager.
The Imperial doctor was silent. The Empress Dowager did not have any particular allergies.
"Has there been anything different lately?"
"Nothing special... except that she took the youth medicine..."
"Youth medicine? You don't mean that medicine that's being sold on the market?!"
The Imperial doctor groaned, "Oh..." and looked at the collapsed Empress Dowager. Why is this person so immature even at this age?
Medicines that have not been unanimously approved by the Imperial doctors could not be brought into the Imperial Palace.
It was strictly forbidden because it could be used as poison.
"But this hasn't happened to other people who bought that medicine on the market."
At his words, the maid glanced at Adolph.
"Not only the medicine on the market... but the Priest also concocted a medicine with similar effects separately..."
At those words, people's eyes turned to Adolph.
He was pale and flustered.
'What the hell is going on!'
He had clearly stolen the recipe from the Hope Merchant Group and made it exactly the same. But why did only the Empress Dowager collapse?
If this happens, it will all be his fault that the Empress Dowager collapsed.
However, he couldn't say that he, a Priest, had stolen the merchant group's recipe.
If it became known that he, one of the 21 Priests who manage the Central Temple, had bribed someone to commit theft, he would be kicked out immediately.
'I have to blame it on the Hope Merchant Group's medicine.'
Adolph immediately contacted a worker at the Hope Merchant Group.
Martin, a worker who had been working at the Hope Merchant Group for three years, clicked his tongue.
He had jumped at the Priest's offer out of greed for money, but he didn't know that things would become so troublesome.
[Is there really no one who has had problems after taking your medicine?]
[Yes, no one has ever come to us saying they had a problem.]
[Then you have to create a problem.]
With those words, the Priest handed him a vial. He told him to put this powder in the stock of youth medicine.
Mixing the powder into the medicine was not that difficult.
As a member of the security forces, Martin knew the patrol routes and the guards' shift times better than anyone else, and he even knew when the workers left work.
He took advantage of a gap when no one was around and entered the warehouse.
Feeling around the wall in the dark, he looked for the stock of youth medicine.
'Why are there so many damn things.'
Over the past five years, the growing Hope Merchant Group has reached out to everything from small needles to large military supplies.
There were too many things in the warehouse, and the inside was dark.
Wiping the sweat flowing down his wrist, he rummaged through the sacks.
"What are you looking for so hard?"
"What else, youth... Ack!"
He gasped as he unconsciously answered the voice coming from above the sack.
As if signaling the voice, dim lights came on in the dark warehouse.
A girl was sitting on the sack, smiling brightly.
"Luminous medicine?"
"Wh, wh, what! You little bi...!"
Thwack!
His head was slammed onto the sack.
Startled, he struggled and shook off the hand.
What he saw when he turned his head was the Deputy Head and his aide, Curtis.
"What are you doing here?"
At the Deputy Head's question, Martin's face turned pale. "Th, that's..." he stammered before shouting.
"I, I was looking for something on the Head's orders."
"The Head? How do you know the Head?"
"They sent someone to the store."
He had to escape while the Deputy Head was trying to figure out the situation.
The girl walked over lightly and leaned forward with her hands behind her back.
"Your excuse isn't very sincere."
"......What?"
"When did I give such an order?"
At the child's words, Martin chuckled.
"What nonsense... how can a little girl be the Head of this big merchant group..." Cough!
He was immediately grabbed by the neck by Seria, and he groaned, turning red. Seria looked down at him with dry eyes as he tried to twist his neck like a bug.
"Shh, the Head didn't give you permission to speak, did she?"
"......!"
Martin and Curtis widened their eyes.
Is that child really the Head?
No way!
In just five years, the Hope Merchant Group had grown into one of the top ten largest merchant groups in the Empire.
Monopolizing Spinelle and controlling the commercial supremacy, there was now nothing that they didn't get involved in, even war supplies.
How could the owner of such a merchant group be a little girl who wasn't even ten years old!
However, the Deputy Head, who never subdued his momentum even in front of the High nobles' merchant groups, was very polite to the child.
"Let him go."
At those words, the strength in her hand was released. Martin coughed and took a step back, looking back and forth between the child and the Deputy Head.
The child slowly approached him.
"I think I've been pretty good to the workers, so I wonder what you didn't like."
Martin's throat dried up at the girl's murmur.
It was strange. He, who commanded the security forces, felt like he was being intimidated by a little girl.
The child's small hand touched Martin's shoulder.
"Huh? What didn't you like?"
"That, I..."
Seeing Martin unable to answer properly because he was so scared, the child shrugged.
"Well, never mind."
"......Yes?"
"I wasn't going to forgive you even if you told me."
At that moment, light seemed to shine from the child's hand, and he felt heat in his neck.
When he turned his head, wondering what it was, the child's hand was shining red, and his neck felt like it was burning as if he had swallowed a fireball.
"Ugh, kkeuheueueuk-!"
The blood vessels all over his body bulged. Martin, who was trembling like he was electrocuted, screamed his last words, "Sa, save... save me...!" before collapsing.
The child wiped her hand with a handkerchief as if nothing had happened and left the door.
Curtis swallowed hard as he watched Seria, who was staring intently at the child's back with narrowed brows.
'She must be flustered.'
Even though she's the Head, she must be flustered that a child made a person like this with such a nonchalant attitude.
Of course, not as much as he was.
Who would have known that the person behind the scenes who had made them stand shoulder to shoulder with the leading merchant groups in just five years was a child who didn't even seem to be ten years old.
Seria was so desperate to put the Head forward, so he thought there must be a reason, but he never dreamed that it would be such a young child.
He decided to hear the circumstances later and said to Seria.
"If she's the Head, she needs to control the merchant group, so this is inevitable-"
"......She's grown up so wonderfully!"
Seria shuddered.
LeBlaine, whom she had met after several years, had become Dubled's Young Lady.
Seria's office. Standing in front of the full-length mirror, I was wearing three hats, two mufflers, gloves, and various accessories.
"Ah, that's right. This will look good on you too."
Seria, who had put so many things on me, came with another armful of things.
"That's enough. I don't need it."
"They all look good on you..."
Seria said regretfully, and I shook my head. Then I neatly folded or put in a box the things that Seria had put on me.
These things are all valuable stock that will make money.
"Did you take care of Martin?"
"Yes."
"Good, then I have to go."
"Stay a little longer. This is your first time coming into the merchant group."
Seria's eyes sparkled, saying there was a lot to show me.
However, I shook my head. I had put a doll in the blanket instead of myself to get out of the mansion. I might get caught if I don't go back quickly.
"Is it okay that you showed yourself to Curtis?"
At her words, I nodded.
"He's someone Seria trusts. Then I trust him too."
"You're saying happy things. Here, this is the thing you asked for."
I received the paper bag that Seria handed me. I checked the inside and nodded.
