Sephiel went up the stairs and gestured.
Cherno’s men who had been waiting above came rushing down the stairs.
When Sephiel suddenly appeared behind Cherno again, Cherno was yelling at Philux.
“Count Verice! What is this?”
Cherno walked briskly towards Philux.
Philux’s eyes widened when he saw Cherno.
“Wh-what brings you here? Isn’t the contract date tomorrow?”
“Ha. Are you saying such shameless things? You created a town like this to scam me?”
Philux’s hand trembled once.
But then he suddenly dropped his sinister expression and put on a smiling mask.
“Ah, now I see. You must be so eager to pay the balance right away. Haha, you should have sent word! How anxious must you be to come all the way into a restricted area? You almost gave me a heart attack.”
Even as he spoke, Philux glanced sideways at Sephiel.
“But this child is—”
Before Philux could finish speaking, Cherno spoke in an angry tone.
“Count Verice, you’re quite shameless for someone whose tricks have been exposed. I’d like to talk about the ‘actors’ you stationed here. According to the ones playing the farmer and the innkeeper, they were sent from the Thieves’ Guild of Volun.”
“……”
“Tell me, Count Verice! What exactly are you trying to sell me?”
Philux swallowed hard as he met the gaze that seemed to burn his body just by looking at it.
Then he soon spoke calmly.
“Oh my, what do you mean?”
“What?”
“I simply wanted to smooth out the land deal.”
“What does that mean?”
“If I’d claimed to have something I didn’t own, that would be a fraud. But look at this.”
Philux opened a drawer and pulled out a bundle of documents.
‘Well, they’re all land registers, certificates of ownership!’
Sephiel glanced at the documents and noticed something.
“It’s a fact—I own this land. Didn’t you originally want to develop it and grow a city here? I just helped you ‘imagine’ what that city would look like when it was completed.”
“Helped me…?”
“See? Human imagination is limited. I ‘placed’ residents in advance to help you visualize the finished city more clearly. Isn’t dressing up a product the basics of business?”
Philux looked as if he were dying of injustice. Combined with his smooth, easy-going face, the effect was extremely convincing.
“To call a man’s good intentions a scam—how outrageous! I’m speechless.”
“Hah.”
Cherno’s face twisted in disbelief. Sephiel felt the same.
‘There it is! This guy and his silver tongue!’
The great conman, Count Verice or Philux.
‘How many people had been ruined by him? How many lost everything and ended up on the streets?’
‘But this guy lives proudly without paying the price for his crime?’
Especially that stock manipulation incident.
‘Wasn’t it the same stock I recommended to Lotto?’
Sephiel recommended to Lotto the stocks that Philux was involved in.
At first, it gave thirtyfold returns, but then it crashed, dragging many people into ruin.
‘Because of this guy, fifteen people commit suicide every year?’
And that was just the number reported by the ‘Kingdom Times’, a publication known for its loyalty to the Allegro royal family. The real numbers were surely worse.
‘Yet he’s never faced punishment or sent to jail!’
All because he was royalty—part of the Allegro royal family.
Because he was King Wittegar III’s financier, Philux had always scammed people without consequence.
‘When I think about it again, it’s really strange, isn’t it?’
Philux should’ve been the one rotting in prison, not Sephiel. That thought crossed Sephiel’s mind.
“You insolent fool, playing word games now?”
Cherno’s gaze changed.
Sephiel flinched at the sight of his sparkling golden eyes.
Those golden eyes reminded her of Erga.
“Why? Did I say something wrong?”
Philux spread his arms.
“It’s true that a gate was discovered in this town. And it works. You’ve seen it with your own eyes.”
“……”
“Oh, wait—are you trying to cancel the deal by finding fault with it? That would be a problem.”
Philux suddenly became serious and raised his voice.
“I can’t return the deposit. It’s common sense that deposits are non-refundable if a deal is canceled.”
‘Ah. I can’t stand it anymore.’
Something inside Sephiel snapped.
‘Hey, you scammer.’
Sephiel clearly remembered the moment she’d been swindled by Philux in her past life.
She had always been the royal family’s scapegoat. Ignored and belittled her whole life.
However, Sephiel did not hate Philux that much.
<My dear niece, working hard again today? But it’s only a task for someone as brilliant as you! So impressive.>
They hadn’t met many times, but Philux had been one of the few adults who spoke kindly to Sephiel.
<My uncle must be a good person. He is kind to a cursed child like me.>
Naive Sephiel had believed that.
‘But when a conman shows kindness, there’s always something behind it.’
‘Yeah, that’s it.’
‘It’s because you’re useful.’
They say conmen always meet a miserable end.
Philux, who had been doing such bad things his whole life, eventually ran out of money and became a beggar.
To King Wittegar III, only his sons mattered.
Although Philux had made the king a lot of money, once his past stock manipulation was exposed, the king chose to abandon him.
He let Philux escape, but…Philux wasn’t the kind of person who would just run away.
One day, Sephiel was working in her room as usual.
The room where Sephiel worked in her previous life was a room where ledgers were kept.
There was a secret safe in that room.
It was the safe where Witteger kept his emergency funds and slush funds.
<My dear niece. I came here to run an errand for my brother. Could you open the safe just once? I saw you last time—you seemed to know the password… You memorized it, right?>
Philux came and asked earnestly.
<That… I can’t do….>
Of course, Sephiel refused. But Philux clung even more desperately.
<You don’t believe me? My brother told me to bring him the money! Come on, please?>
Philux had bloodshot eyes and a strange expression.
<Huh? When I get settled later, I won’t forget you. Remember how I took your side when you got in trouble? I stood up for you, didn’t I?>
That part was true. When the First Prince would hit Sephiel for no reason, Philux was the only one who at least pretended to stop him.
Of course, there were plenty of days when he just turned a blind eye.
<Hurry up, open it!>
Philux grabbed Sephiel by the collar and shook her, threatening her.
In the end, Sephiel had no choice but to open the safe.
Philux started to take the money inside like a madman.
<Thanks! Let’s never see each other again, you damn stupid princess of the cursed Allegro royal family!>
The moment he got the money, Philux’s expression changed, he said that and ran away.
‘Yeah, that expression was terrifying. That’s when I learned what kind of faces adults make in front of money.’
‘That was the day I realized. And I saw hell.’
The aftermath was handled by Sephiel alone.
People rushed in, swearing at Sephiel and beating her.
In particular, Wittegar ordered Sephiel to be severely beaten.
<After all I’ve done for you, this is what you do? You never should’ve been born. You are responsible for everything!>
His harsh scolding shocked Sephiel so much that she couldn’t speak properly for a while.
After that, Sephiel’s treatment worsened. She was punished with a full week of starvation.
She remembered the hunger vividly—how she endured it by filling her stomach with water.
‘And of course, there was no justice. Philux fled to another continent and lived well afterward.’
There was even a rumor that he bought an island and lived there, creating a paradise.
‘Oh, yeah. That happened too.’
Every time she remembered, all that came back was rage.
Anyway, even with that grudge… Philux was only number 9 on Sephiel’s Death Note.
‘It’s not like he tormented only me—he just used whoever was convenient, randomly.’
‘Doesn’t mean I wasn’t angry, though.’
Something inside Sephiel howled.
‘Maybe he could’ve continued to scam people and live shamelessly if he hadn’t met me today.’
The part of Sephiel that barks at the thought of revenge–like a vicious little dog named Revenge.
‘Now that I have become evil, I don’t hesitate to punish evil.’
* * *
