“Here it is.”
“Here.”
“……”
“……”
As I murmured, looking at the iron door that boasted the same appearance as described by Ian, Ruth spoke at the same time.
Realizing our voices overlapped unintentionally, I looked at him and met his iris, which resembled the abyss.
Again.
I quickly averted my gaze, somehow feeling a sense of discord in the situation. Otherwise, it felt as though the distant drumming sound would discover us.
Fortunately, Ruth, who did not find my behavior too strange, gently placed his hand on the doorknob and murmured something softly with his eyelids lowered.
The moment his faint voice ceased, a stark white light wrapped around the black iron door once, then naturally vanished.
Was that white light just now magic?
I tilted my head, staring at where the light had been just a second ago.
Ruth, casting a curious glance at me, flung open the door and leaned against it.
“Come on. Since I’ve removed all the hazards, go ahead and enter.”
“If by hazards, you mean there were traps?”
“Hmm, there were about three or four small ones.”
“I see.”
After all, someone like the Duke Dright would not have left a space, akin to his vulnerability, without any security measures.
I easily accepted the reason why there must be traps here and stepped through the black iron door.
As I crossed the threshold, a foul smell hit my nose, making me cringe, but I quickly got used to it.
The space of Duke Dright looked no different from any other office, except for one unique feature: the eerily lifelike models of various animals scattered around.
Could Duke Dright be an animal lover?
While looking at the animal models, such a thought crossed my mind, but I immediately dismissed it. If he truly loved animals, he wouldn’t partake in the cruel act of using the skins of live animals to make models.
Losing interest in the animal models quickly, I moved towards a table attached to the wall.
Scattered on the luxurious-looking table were various documents, among which a particularly thick bundle caught my eye.
What’s this?
Unable to contain my curiosity, I opened the bundle to find it was filled with details related to financial management.
“This is……”
“Ledger, sir.”
Suddenly, coming up behind me, Ruth caught the words I was about to say. Then, with a face full of curiosity, he thoroughly examined the ledger.
After checking the last page of the ledger, Ruth let out a scoff.
“Judging by how different this is from what was coming up to me, this seems to be the real one.”
“?”
Prompted by his words, I went through the ledger even more carefully than before. Then, I started to notice small flaws that I hadn’t seen the first time I read it.
Not long ago, Ruth had shown me a ledger that Duke Draite had submitted at the royal palace. It was a ledger that looked like the epitome of honesty and simplicity, with its income solely relying on the support from the surrounding nobles.
But the ledger lying before me now was quite, in fact, vastly different.
The part concerning the nobles’ support was replaced with revenue earned from casino patrons, and the investment funds for the children raised in the facility were switched to investments sent to an organization named ‘H’.
Moreover, the amounts written next to each item were also different. For instance, the overall revenue, which had been slightly above a commoner’s monthly living expenses before, now far exceeded a noble’s monthly expenses.
No… There should be a limit to lying. This isn’t just manipulation; it’s been completely fabricated.
I couldn’t stop the burst of hollow laughter that escaped me. The audacity of Duke Dright to alter the ledgers to this extent was both admirable and detestable.
Amidst this ridiculous laughter, the amounts written in the ledger caught my eye. Specifically, the monthly earnings from the casino alone.
Why are they so low?
I stared in puzzlement at the bizarre numbers, feeling increasingly suspicious.
The total monthly earnings from the casino noted in the ledger were around 300 gold coins—a figure that I might have overlooked had I not discovered Kartan’s deceit.
But knowing how Kartan earns his money, I couldn’t help but find significance in this amount. Given that each game of blackjack he runs involves a minimum of 2 gold coins, by my calculations, his earnings from just this alone would undoubtedly exceed 300 gold coins.
As I looked at the numbers, which felt as out of place as oil on water, I soon regained my composure and began to speak. It was a subtle way to let Ruth know why I had been silent.
“I don’t know who managed the ledger, but they sure omitted a lot.”
“It’s not omitted.”
“What?”
I couldn’t understand the meaning of his response and furrowed my eyebrows towards the center. Seeing my reaction, Ruth snickered as if he hadn’t expected much and added, “He intentionally didn’t use it.”
“Ah.”
It was then that I, belatedly realizing what I had been missing, let out a quiet sigh. Ruth, seeing me finally starting to catch on, slightly leaned towards me and pointed at the ledger with his well-shaped fingers.
“Here, here, and here. They all have something in common, don’t they?”
The sections he pointed to were all related to revenue, and given that one of them was income from a casino, it seemed that all three might be fabricated revenue, according to Ruth’s identification.
Could it be… I covered my mouth with my hand as I mulled over a conversation I had with Ruth previously that suddenly came to mind.
If Ruth’s speculation was correct, Duke Hazel and Duke Dright were in some form of collaboration, acting as the backers of the slave auction.
This meant that the ledger we were looking at could be accessed not only by Duke Dright but also by Duke Hazel.
But if these ledgers are really tampered with, doesn’t it mean that a cooperative relationship based on trust cannot be established? Why would Duke Dright manipulate the profits? Or is my guess completely wrong, and this is actually correct?
“…….”
My lips quivered with a plethora of question marks in my head.
But in the end, I chose silence.
The lack of a cooperative relationship meant betrayal by one party. And when cooperation and betrayal, two words starkly different in sentiment, coexist in a relationship, it was clear what would happen.
Both sides would fall, leaving no chance for rebuilding.
I murmured to myself internally and clenched my empty hands.
Despite knowing that it’s not my business and instead, I should perhaps be pleased that they might have betrayed each other, I felt uneasy.
Would it have been better if the relationship between the two was so strong that they couldn’t be separated?
While I was suppressing my ambiguous feelings, Ruth, noticing that his thoughts had been conveyed to me, lifted the corners of his mouth and then flicked my deeply furrowed brow without me knowing.
“If you keep frowning like that, you’ll get wrinkles.”
“……I know that.”
“Then why are you doing this?”
“I just have too much on my mind.”
At my reply, Ruth shrugged as if he had expected as much.
“Just think of it this way. The bad guys were doing bad things among themselves and had the misfortune of getting caught by us.”
“But.”
It was indeed the bad guys caught in their own misdeeds by us, and not the other way around. Therefore, there was absolutely no need for me to feel sorry for them.
What bothered me was the possibility of betrayal existing within the cooperative relationship they maintained, even deceiving the emperor and the nobles.
Why do people betray, lie, and deceive over and over again? It’s a bitter and regrettable reality.
The contemplation that started with the relationship between Duke Dright and Duke Hazel and connected to my reality was soon interrupted by Ruth, who spoke after a moment of thought.
“Sometimes, my lady, you need to know how to think lightly. A well can be as deep as it wants to be.”
“……”
“And through this, aren’t we benefiting enough? If Duke Dright really betrayed Duke Hazel, all we have to do is subtly leak the evidence to Duke Hazel. Then, their cooperative relationship will collapse on its own, and we can take the opportunity to punish them.”
Ruth’s gaze, as if he had pierced right through my inner thoughts, was tender as he pinpointed exactly what was on my mind.
Maybe that’s why. His advice, which could perhaps sound harsh, felt like comfort drawn from experience.
“Thank you.”
“You’re thanking me for everything, huh.”
As I conveyed my gratefulness, embedding it into every single word from the bottom of my heart, Ruth chuckled.
Then, wiping away his smile to some extent, he took out leather gloves from his pocket, put them on, and knelt on one knee.
“More importantly, have a look at this.”
Saying that, he carefully opened the second drawer and inserted his hand into it.
Hmm?
I tried to smooth out my furrowing brow again, watching Ruth rummage through the drawer suddenly. It was hard to grasp what he intended to do.
After a moment, Ruth pulled out a brown envelope from the drawer. It was an envelope with a large, strange magic circle stamped on the outside.
“What’s this?”
“Ah. This is.”
As I asked about the identity of the envelope, Ruth quickly broke the magic circle and showed me several documents that came out of it.
“It’s evidence that the second son of the Harvest family, whom your informant told you about, was murdered by the Duke of Dright.”
“!”
At his explanation, I hastily skimmed through the documents Ruth was holding.
During that, one document in particular strongly stayed in my mind. At the top of that document, it was written “Physical Renunciation Letter.”
