“You owed money to the Eileen Merchant Guild?”  

“Honey, what do you mean by debt?”  

“Debt? What are you talking about?”  

“It wasn’t me! It was that cursed Adelia who caused this mess! Entrusting the territory work to that thing was a mistake!”  

The Count, consumed by rage, could no longer filter his words. He lashed out recklessly, saying things he shouldn’t. The Countess and Robelia, startled by his outburst, hurried to examine the documents lying near the young count.  

Robelia squinted at the papers but failed to grasp their meaning. The Countess, however, who had experience managing household affairs, turned pale and nearly fainted.  

“This amount… This is impossible with the current finances of the family!”  

“If we don’t pay within a week, they’ll send this to the imperial palace. Those cursed merchants must be conspiring against us!”  

“The imperial court? What a disgrace!”  

“Imperial court? No way. Father! How am I supposed to show my face after this?”  

As the gravity of the situation sank in, the family erupted in frustration, throwing sharp words that bordered on mockery toward Adelia.  

The young count, realizing that panicking would solve nothing, began to think hard.  

“If this ends up in the imperial court, no one will ever try to curry favor with our family again. Bribes? Forget it. We have to pay this debt first.”  

“How can we when we don’t have the money!”  

“Mother, Robelia—please gather any jewelry we can sell. Father, see if there’s anywhere we can borrow more money.”  

“Sell my things? I don’t want to!”  

Robelia shrieked at the mere suggestion of selling her jewelry. The young count’s irritation flared as he watched her throw a tantrum, completely oblivious to the severity of the situation.  

“Did I say sell everything? You have plenty of dresses you don’t even wear!”  

“I bought them all to wear! I have so many tea parties coming up with the ducal lady!”  

“You can alter and rewear what you’ve already worn!”

“Wear something I’ve already worn? I don’t want to!”  

Robelia stormed out of the office in a huff. The remaining family members rubbed their foreheads in frustration, her behavior more childish and immature than her age should allow.  

“I’ll handle Robelia’s things.”

“Yes, don’t give in, even if she throws a tantrum.” 

The young count glared at the door Robelia had slammed behind her, his annoyance clear. The Countess, shaking her head at the chaos, left the room as well, muttering that she would search the dressing room for clothes to sell.  

The Count remained in his chair, still breathing heavily, unable to contain his anger. From outside, Robelia’s whining voice and the Countess’s attempts to calm her echoed faintly through the walls.  

‘Damn… I knew this would happen.’

The young count swallowed an irritated curse. The situation was so dreadful he wished it were nothing more than a bad dream.  

* * *

“Master, good news. The Vita family has repaid all the money. The full amount came in cash, including interest.”

“It took exactly a week.”

Adelia sat by the sunny window talking into a communication stone floating in the air. Below, Kai yawned lazily while his beautiful fur swayed.

Sitting in the plush chair, Adelia looked serene and peaceful.

Conrad’s face appeared in the fist-sized communication stone. His bright smile showed clearly even through the distorted, blurry screen.

Adelia raised the corner of her mouth and smirked.

“You look happy?”

“Of course. I never thought we’d get this money back. And clean money at that. I couldn’t be happier.”

“Oh. You’ve already investigated?”

“We’ve been monitoring since we sent the letter. Would you like me to list the details?”

Conrad’s eyes sparkled, apparently asking to be praised for doing work without being told. It was as if an invisible tail was wagging in the air.

Adelia waved her hand dismissively.

“Just give me the brief version.”

“Tch…… Understood. Simply put, 80% came from the family’s remaining assets, 10% from selling jewelry. The remaining 10% is money borrowed from various places.”

“We cleaned them out nicely.”

Adelia rubbed her chin with satisfaction. The Count family, having emptied their remaining assets to pay the debt, was now just an empty box with only a fancy wrapping.

With the money that had covered their ugly nature now gone, their true colors would easily show through.

Adelia tapped the armrest with her hand.

“With that much cleaned out, the townhouse servants must have noticed.”

“They couldn’t not know. The servants were the ones who moved and sold the jewelry.”

“Perfect. The rumors will spread quickly to the Count’s territory too.”

Adelia snapped her fingers with a cold smile. For a moment, a faint light sparkled between her thumb and index finger.

She felt a very slight magical power return to her body.

“What did you do to suddenly smile like that? I saw something sparkle—was that magic?”

Conrad pressed forward with curious, bright eyes.

Adelia pursed her lips, contemplating whether to explain.

“It’s more fun when two people know instead of one. You know the gold bar on my desk? Check that.”

At Adelia’s words, Conrad stood up with a puzzled face. He strode to the desk behind him. And then a moment later—

“Eeeeh? What is this!”

A strange scream was heard.

Soon after came the sound of stomping feet. Conrad threw himself into the chair and grabbed the communication stone with both hands, pressing his face close.

“Master! The gold bar is gone! There’s only a rock that looks like a gold bar—did someone steal it? Don’t tell me it was that person attacking the guild?”

“Haha, I told you I did something. I turned the gold bar into a rock. Or rather, I returned the rock that was a gold bar back to normal?”

“What?”

Adelia laughed loudly at Conrad’s expression as he tilted his head with wide eyes, still not understanding.

She had tied together the magic on the fake gold bars in preparation for when the magic would break. One of those gold bars she had made was the one on the desk.

The fact that it had turned back into a rock meant that the gold bars given to the Count’s territory servants had also turned to rocks.

The servants who had borrowed lots of money believing in the gold bars were left with nothing but debt.

“That’s how it is.”

“Is that all you’re going to say? The gold bars in the vault are real, right? Don’t tell me the ones used in trades were fake too?”

“We’ve never used fake gold bars in our guild. They’ve never been circulated either, so don’t worry.”

“Phew…… That’s a relief then.”

Conrad didn’t question further. He straightened up and removed his hands from the communication stone he had been holding.

He cleanly cut off his interest as if he was only curious about the fake gold bars for non-personal reasons.

Adelia pouted disappointingly as she couldn’t explain in more detail. But she quickly moved on to another topic and led the conversation.

“A letter from the Holy Kingdom arrived at the imperial palace last night. They should be announcing it now during the noble council meeting. The contract with the required quantities will be sent to the guild, so check it yourself.”

“It arrived faster than expected. Should we prepare to send out the invitations then?”

“Yes, arrange to send them out around lunchtime.”

Thanks to working Conrad through the night, everything from the banquet hall decoration plans to the guest list flowed perfectly.

They had completed the invitations with lavish gold leaf decorations, and prepared the gifts to send with the invitations as well as the boxes to put them in.

“No problems with the stained glass supply?”

“Thanks to setting a generous budget, we’ve secured all the quantities you mentioned, Master.”

“The Holy Kingdom will request that much too. Prepare a little extra just in case, and now let’s move on to what the guild will sell.”

“Yes, understood.”

Conrad and Adelia discussed various matters regarding the trade with the Holy Kingdom.

The Eileen Merchant Guild planned to send colored glass for stained-glass windows, along with skilled craftsmen, to the Holy Kingdom. The colored glass was already ready, but they still needed to determine how many of the guild’s craftsmen would accompany the shipment.

“Let’s send that many then.”

“I’ll contact the craftsmen.”

“Good. The construction in the Holy Kingdom will take at least a year to complete.”  

“Just the journey alone takes several months, and there’s a lot of materials involved. Finishing it within a year would already be fast.”  

“It’d be done instantly if we used magic. Alright, let’s wrap this up and get back to work.”  

“Understood, Master.”  

Adelia waved her hand and ended the communication stone. The stone that had been floating in the air fell onto her lap as the screen went black.

After putting the communication stone into spatial storage, Adelia stretched her arms and let out a small groan.

“Ugh…… I’m tired. It’s almost lunchtime……”