I could see them hesitate at my threatening words.
But Nasda didn’t seem like the kind of person who would bow his head and say, ‘Yes, understood,’ just because someone threatened him.
“When you needed money, you came groveling to us. And now you’re threatening us?”
“This isn’t a threat. You’re the ones who broke the law.”
Either he was too fucking stupid to understand what I was saying, or he had come here intending to plunder us from the start and was deliberately pretending not to understand.
The southern gate had originally been under the Vice Captain of the Knights’ jurisdiction.
In my previous life, it probably opened for them like an automatic door.
The tense standoff continued.
If Nasda had been an ordinary Baron, I might really have killed him like I threatened earlier.
‘The Samuan Family is tied to other noble families through its moneylending business.’
Killing their eldest son would give them justification.
Many noble families could turn against us.
It was a troublesome problem, so I had to be careful.
As neither side gave an inch, Father, who had heard the news, climbed onto the wall.
“......What is all this?”
“The Samuan Family arrived with an army under the pretext of collecting a debt. Lord Lumio spoke with them and ordered Nasda to enter alone, but he refused.”
Father frowned at Arhan’s explanation.
“......We still lack the means to repay their entire debt. We’ve only just begun making money through trade rights and taxes. If only they had come a little later...... For now, wouldn’t it be better to let them inside?”
“No. There are many merchant companies in the territory right now. If those bastards come in and cause trouble, we’ll lose the trust we worked so hard to gain. That bastard probably rushed here precisely because he knew that.”
They wanted us to remain undeveloped.
That way, they could continue holding the upper hand.
“If a fight breaks out here, both sides will suffer considerable losses. And if that eldest son is injured, many noble families may retaliate. I’ve heard that although the Samuan Family itself only holds the rank of Baron, there are Counts among the families connected to them.”
Father added bitterly,“Ultimately, we are the ones who borrowed the money.”
And that debt existed because of me.
So I intended to resolve it myself.
I stared at the mercenaries Nasda had brought.
Then I focused on the man who appeared to be their leader.
There was a snake tattoo on his neck.
He also kept rubbing one shoulder with his other hand as though it bothered him.
“This might be easier to resolve than I thought. I’ll go handle it myself.”
“Are you planning to fight?”
“No. I’ll peacefully bring Nasda inside by himself.”
Leaving Father tilting his head behind me, I raised the corners of my mouth and descended from the wall.
***
Nasda couldn’t understand the situation.
Not only had the Administrator and Vice Captain he had colluded with been dismissed, but he had also heard that the North was developing at a rapid pace.
He had come to see whether those rumors were true......
Only to find the lord’s son, who supposedly had an incurable disease and couldn’t even leave his room, threatening him!
And now they were even firing warning shots with magic.
The whole thing was absurd.
So this was what it felt like when a dog you raised bit its master.
“What fucking bluff...... A bastard who was lying in bed waiting to die until recently.”
A disobedient dog only came to its senses after being beaten.
Nasda gestured toward the Enforcer of the Viper Mercenary Corps.
“You can handle a few mages like that, can’t you?”
“Didn’t you say there wouldn’t be any need to fight? My body isn’t exactly in good shape either......”
“You came back after getting beaten somewhere, and now you’re complaining? Do you know how much money we’ve paid your mercenary corps? You can at least do this much.”
“Fine.”
He swung his sword and easily shattered the ice binding his feet.
“Still, can you handle going to war with a Count?”
“He’s a Count in name only. A powerless scarecrow. Even in the royal capital, the North is considered a card to be discarded. They can’t attack us anyway.”
Nasda pointed toward the gate and chuckled.
“Just break the gate down.”
At those words, the mercenary leader covered his sword in sword aura.
He was a lower-tier Sword Expert, placing him roughly on the same level as the Knight Captain standing up there.
Nasda had also heard that the other mercenaries were reasonably skilled.
One after another, they began breaking through the ice.
“Still, I suppose it’s polite to warn them first. If you don’t open the gate, we’re breaking it down and coming in!”
Nasda shouted loudly.
Then Lumio began descending from the wall.
“So you finally figured out the situation?”
Nasda couldn’t suppress his smile.
There was an intoxicating sense of superiority in watching nobles crumble before money.
Soon, the gate opened, and Lumio walked steadily toward them.
“You were threatening us so fiercely a moment ago...... What, did you come out to welcome me?”
Nasda had expected to see a humiliated, defeated expression.
Instead, Lumio looked perfectly composed.
The corners of his mouth were even raised arrogantly, as though he still believed himself to be the one in control.
“How irritating.”
The gate was already half open, but Nasda had no intention of withdrawing his order.
“Why aren’t you breaking it down?”
“......Wait. That face...... You’re saying that’s the lord’s son?”
At the horrified voice, Nasda turned toward the mercenary leader.
The man was trembling as though he had seen a ghost.
“What’s wrong with you?”
No answer came.
He merely stared blankly at Lumio while tightly clutching the shoulder he had supposedly injured.
“We meet again. I didn’t spare you so you could do something like this......”
At Lumio’s words, the mercenary leader lowered his gaze.
He even took a step backward.
“I-I didn’t know. I had no idea you were in this territory...... We’re leaving.”
“What the hell are you saying?”
“I’m pulling out of this job. I’ll return the money.”
“......What?”
As far as Nasda remembered, this man was recklessly aggressive to the point of having no brakes whatsoever.
If someone displeased him, noble or otherwise, violence was his first answer.
That was why Nasda had tolerated the man speaking casually to him despite being a Baron.
Yet now, merely seeing Lumio had sent him fleeing with his tail between his legs.
He even took all his subordinates with him.
“Don’t tell me...... You got those injuries because of him?”
Nasda had visited the northern territory several times, but this was his first time seeing Lumio’s face.
In other words, Lumio truly had spent all his time shut inside his room, quiet as a dead mouse.
‘Then how?’
“Are you coming inside or not?”
Lumio answered his question with another question.
The initiative was entirely his.
‘Father personally ordered me to do this. I can’t simply return like this.’
“......I’ll go in.”
Nasda bit his lip and forced out the answer.
At that moment, his head snapped sideways.
A burning pain spread across his cheek.
He hadn’t even seen the trajectory of the strike.
SLAP―!
“What the hell are you doing?!”
“Since when does the son of a mere Baron speak casually to a Count’s eldest son?”
“Th-That......”
“Show some respect. We may have borrowed money from you, but that doesn’t change our respective ranks.”
Lumio looked much younger than Nasda, yet his gaze seemed fierce enough to tear apart a northern bear.
How could someone change this much in only a few months?
The North was no longer the place Nasda remembered.
“......My apologies.”
“Now we can finally have a conversation. Follow me.”
Nasda had no choice but to obediently follow.
And once he entered the territory, he was left speechless.
There were merchant companies everywhere.
There were even Dwarves.
The shabby North he had once been able to toy with however he pleased was gone.
***
After that, everything proceeded rapidly.
It was thanks to the five hundred gold coins I had brought out.
That amount was more than enough to repay the debt, interest included.
Of course, I had no intention of paying all the unfair interest they had piled on.
“You hid this in letters this tiny, and the interest is this enormous? What country’s law is this supposed to be? At this point, the navel is bigger than the belly.”
“......That may be true, but......”
“I’m not saying I won’t pay interest. But even if you bought your title, you’re still a Baron. What do you think the kingdom would say if a noble openly committed fraud like this?”
Nobles valued dignity.
There were already plenty of people who looked down on a Baron engaging in moneylending.
In fact, the Samuan Family would eventually abandon the moneylending business and live by laundering the fortune they had accumulated.
“Should we request a judgment from the kingdom?”
Seeking a judgment required considerable time and money.
The old North could never have afforded it.
But what about now?
Nasda looked back and forth between me and the piles of money on the table.
“Ah, we should probably also request judgment over you bringing an army into the northern territory and insulting a Count.”
My parents simply watched as I controlled the conversation.
Cold sweat trickled down Nasda’s forehead.
“Will you take the principal and a little interest, or do you want to take this all the way?”
“I’ll take...... the principal and interest.”
Even that amounted to four hundred gold coins.
Nasda reached toward the table and began gathering the coins.
“Then the debt is settled...... Should we hold a separate judgment now?”
“What are you suddenly talking about?”
“Every time you came to the North, you seized the residents’ belongings in the name of interest and even used violence. You also took the landscape painting that used to hang in the corridor of the lord’s castle......”
Father flared up at those words.
“So you were the bastard who took it?! I wondered where it had gone!”
I had secretly watched them steal it from inside my room in the past.
Back then, I had been too frightened by their tyranny to say anything.
A territory followed the kingdom’s laws, and the lord possessed the authority to pass judgment within it.
“Assault, plunder, theft...... Looks like you might be living in a northern prison for a while.”
“W-Wait! Regarding those incidents, I can pay bail......!”
“One hundred fifty gold coins.”
“......What?”
“You said you’d pay bail.”
“The principal was only three hundred gold coins! Then I won’t even recover the principal!”
“Ah, all right. If you don’t like it, go to prison.”
I waved my hand dismissively and answered shamelessly.
“Do I look like I’m doing this to make money?”
“......”
Now that the debt had been fully repaid, it was perfectly clear who held the upper hand.
The kingdom was strict about differences in rank as well.
“Whatever money we collect while you’re in prison will be safely delivered to Baron Samuan. What a shame, though. The prisons in the North are terribly cold. Didn’t a prisoner freeze to death there recently?”
When I finished speaking and tilted my head, Arhan, who was guarding the door, moved.
At the clatter of armor, Nasda bit his lip and shouted,“Understood!”
In the end, Nasda pressed his fingerprint onto a document agreeing to pay one hundred fifty gold coins in bail.
His face flushed with rage as he removed some of the gold he had gathered and placed it back on the table.
Apparently, he was truly terrified of a northern prison.
‘The story about the prisoner dying was completely made up, though.’
You people have committed plenty of fraud too, so consider us even.
Feeling slightly guilty, I gently massaged his shoulder.
“Good choice. We don’t particularly want to put a Baron in prison either.”
At my suddenly kind tone, Nasda stared blankly at me.
“Now, now. We’ll show you the way out.”
Nasda left without managing to say another word.
Father watched through the window until he had left the lord’s castle, then spoke.
“I deliberately didn’t ask earlier, but where in the world did you get that money?”
I pulled a scroll from inside my clothes.
“I made this.”
“......A magic scroll?”
Naturally, my parents also knew how valuable these were.
“I suppose I have some talent for making them. The Loa Merchant Company bought all of them.”
Mother covered her mouth in shock.
For people who held the rank of Count and Countess, both of my parents were wearing remarkably shabby clothes.
“You don’t have to worry about money anymore.”
I pointed toward the two hundred fifty gold coins sitting alone on the table and smiled broadly.
“This is your spending money. Why don’t you visit the royal capital for the first time in a while and enjoy some shopping? You can buy an entire shop if you want.”
It was something I had always wanted to say at least once.
“Really?”
“How could we possibly spend something this precious?”
“I told you, it’s fine―.”
The sight of my parents smiling brightly was more than enough to make every coin worth it.