Chapter 30
I couldn’t continue speaking and clutched my chest tightly. I bit my lip hard.
“Wait just a moment, wait. Askin.”
“My mind won’t change. I intend to break off the engagement no matter what.”
“Hoh, that’s different from what my granddaughter told me? You were the one bringing interest payments until just recently.”
Grandfather stroked his beard.
Unlike his leisurely gesture, his eyes glinted with sharp anger.
“No, was it a case of each dreaming different dreams? Tsk tsk, I told you to capture her heart, and yet you failed miserably. In the end, this old man has to hear such words from a mere Remute. You’re tarnishing the Altzveit name.”
“Grandfather.”
“Shut your mouth.”
Grandfather glared at me with eyes full of fury.
I could easily recognize the anger contained within them.
“Charlize, you go out.”
On top of that, the fact that he didn’t see me as a proper conversation partner.
“I gave you chance after chance. But it was that fellow who threw them away. Think of him as not the one for you.”
“Wait, Grandfather. This is…….”
“What are you doing?!”
But before I could say anything, I was blocked by knights who came rushing in, and my words couldn’t continue.
‘What is this? These are my escort knights, aren’t they…….’
Strangely, all the knights were wearing masks, as if they had prepared in advance.
I realized it right away.
This was a measure so that Charlize wouldn’t remember their faces and seek revenge later. Someone lifted my body right up.
“Let me go!”
In my panic, I struggled wildly, but the arms holding me didn’t release.
“Grandfather! Grandfather!”
Over the knight’s broad shoulder, I could see Grandfather’s cold face.
“This old man will give you whatever you want. So go play with it.”
In that moment, the image of Grandfather treating people like tools flashed through my mind. At the same time, I realized.
I bit my lip hard.
For a brief moment, it seemed like my eyes met Askin’s.
The man seemed to have eyes wide with shock, but he was immediately blocked by the knights, so I couldn’t be sure.
* * *
“Now that my dear granddaughter has gone, shall we continue.”
“…….”
“I need to see this insolent face of yours through to the end.”
Askin furrowed his brow slightly.
The Altzveit Duke was rambling on right in front of him, but it wasn’t registering in his ears.
It was because the afterimage of that woman’s face lingered as she was dragged away like luggage.
Wasn’t she a woman raised not like some precious princess?
Wasn’t she the woman whom these Altzveits cherished and pampered, giving her only the very best in the world?
But the woman being dragged away had shown no strength to protest on her own.
Because that duke hadn’t even given her a chance to open her mouth.
Askin felt confused.
“I’ll give you one last chance. Do you truly intend to break off the engagement with Altzveit, my granddaughter?”
But this was what he had wanted most.
Freedom.
Askin acknowledged that an obstacle had formed in his heart, but this sudden stone couldn’t overcome the wishes and will he had held for years.
“Of course I want to break off the engagement. My intentions haven’t changed.”
“……Insolent to the end.”
The Altzveit Duke smiled sinisterly.
He was the head of the noble faction, a man whose wealth surpassed even the imperial family.
There weren’t many who could act so boldly and arrogantly before this man of power, and among them, one was his grandson the Emperor Roxidian, and the other was this Remute Duke.
‘A guy with nothing but a rundown territory, a lanky body, and some skill with a sword…….’
That was the problem.
Despite the barrage, this man possessed excessively strong and outstanding abilities.
Just look at how, at the mere age of twenty, he had led a great subjugation and pioneered the ‘Yellow Road’.
If the imperial family hadn’t seized the rights to the Yellow Road for the nation in exchange for a 2,000-year-old medicinal herb back then, he might not be speaking like the superior here.
“Fine, if your resolve is firm, then good. In that case, pay back all the borrowed money at once.”
“I’ll do that. Do you want it in cash?”
“I’ll specially let you choose either way.”
Askin’s eyebrow twitched.
The Altzveit Duke leisurely stroked his beard and curled his lips.
“I prepared for this, but I didn’t think I’d actually have to use it.”
When the Altzveit Duke extended his hand, his adjutant behind him quickly handed over a parchment.
It was a swift movement, as if everything had been prepared.
“The engagement between Altzveit and Remute was a contract backed by money. As you know, it was your side that broke it first midway. Therefore, a penalty fee arises according to the contract.”
“……I know.”
This much was as expected. But at the next words that followed, Askin’s expression hardened.
“You will additionally pay fifty percent of the total interest amount that was to be paid going forward.”
“That’s nonsense!”
As Askin raised his voice, the Altzveit Duke smirked as if he had expected it.
“This won’t do, Duke. I lent you the money expecting to receive interest, but now your side says you don’t need it anymore and wants to repay midway—naturally, I’m the one at a loss. I could have lent it elsewhere at a better rate, but I lent it to you and missed out. If anything, I’m the one who suffered the greater loss.”
The Altzveit Duke asserted strongly, pointing to the parchment.
“Stamp your seal on that document.”
Askin hesitated for a moment at the increased amount.
As if he had anticipated that, the Altzveit Duke brought out a new document this time.
“Or how about this one? This is the contract you stamped before. If you cede all the territories under the Duke’s management, we’ll consider all debts cleared. This is my final act of generosity toward the man who was almost my son-in-law.”
There was no generosity anywhere. His teeth ground together at the sight of the Altzveit Duke now eyeing even the territories built by his ancestors’ blood and sweat.
How much effort had he put in to separate himself from this man and this wolf-pack of a family?
Faced with the document listing the inflated amount and the other proposal, Askin said nothing.
At that, the Altzveit Duke smirked, took back the contract first, and withdrew.
“Well, either way, it seems treating your sister will become even more remote.”
“…….”
The horrific feeling of being an insect caught in a spider’s web, unable to speak.
It was a familiar sensation he had felt consistently for years.
“At the upcoming imperial banquet, make sure to properly play the role of my granddaughter’s fiancé.”
Feeling a sense of conquest, the Altzveit Duke turned away.
“Ah, and I received the interest you sent recently. Repaying interest four times over—impressive abilities as expected.”
At the same time, the Altzveit Duke resolved once more that he wouldn’t let go of this golden goose easily.
Break off the engagement? As if he could.
Askin Remute would be drawn back into the spider’s web again. One way or another.
The Altzveit Duke left, fully satisfied.
‘……But there’s still interest left unpaid—how did it get delivered?’
Leaving Askin in his confusion.
Soon, the confusion on Askin’s face subsided, and cold fury filled its place.
* * *
Askin immediately returned on the horse he had ridden in on. And surprisingly, he ran into Charlize rushing toward the stables.
‘Ugh, what do I do? What should I do?’
Charlize, who had been forcibly dragged out, had been deep in thought the whole time.
Charlize had just barely escaped by berating the escort knights in the original Charlize’s style.
“I’ll block them. Please go.”
The escort knights had been trembling in fear of Charlize’s retaliation while steadfastly following the Altzveit Duke’s orders, but surprisingly, only Jet had taken her side, making it easier to slip away.
As soon as she was free, she ran to the window to check Askin’s position and dashed to the stables.
And the moment Charlize saw Askin’s face, she froze, unable to even say what she had planned to.
It was because a deep fury, incomparable to before, clouded his beautiful features.
Confusion and anger tangled chaotically over the expression with which he regarded Charlize.
“……What nonsense have you come to spout now? No, have you come to threaten me?”
Charlize tried to say no.
But in the next moment, seeing the tear of overflowing anger drop, she lost her words.
It was just one drop. The man, not even thinking to wipe away the tear that fell with a plop, was unrealistically beautiful.
‘……Oh my god, even this ridiculously handsome guy is crying.’
Not the right words for the moment, but he was so pretty that she lost her words.
“I wondered where you learned such dirty tactics using even children…… As expected, like grandfather, like granddaughter?”
“Askin.”
“I’ll repay that dirty money soon, so get ready for the breakup.”
Charlize felt a slight pain near her heart. This man is serious.
She didn’t know what Grandfather had said, but it surely wasn’t anything pleasant. Charlize understood Askin, but at the same time felt wronged and angry.
“Let me ask one thing. Why did you borrow such dirty money?”
“…….”
“When you desperately needed it, it wasn’t dirty then?”