In fact, it was somewhat ambiguous to say that he had come to visit.

Two fully armed soldiers were standing beside the Earl of Wallace, watching him with sharp eyes.

To be precise, the Earl of Wallace had requested a meeting with him.

When Ryan entered the room, the Earl of Wallace tried to approach him. But the soldiers beside the earl grabbed his arms, indicating he shouldn’t move any further.

“You insolent fools!”

Though he shouted with vigor, the earl couldn’t do anything more. Normally, he would have kicked them roughly or spat at them.

After swallowing a few more curses, the earl stopped moving and simply waited for Ryan to approach.

Ryan knew well why he was receiving such treatment.

While digging into the Lensk forces, naturally, everyone connected to Sinclair had been summoned as well.

Among them was the Earl of Wallace. Thanks to Eloise reporting which banquets he had attended and what conversations he had exchanged with Sinclair, he had become a key interrogation target.

That alone was troublesome, but more testimonies kept coming in.

The most problematic were the astrologers close to the countess.

One of the Lensk forces arrested at the cathedral had been staying at the astrologer’s house.
The Prince had already been looking for an opportunity to deal with the Wallace family’s astrologers.

For hundreds of years, they had deceived people with worthless superstitions and now had taken root throughout the royal court.

If they merely told fortunes, it could be laughed off, but it became a serious problem when they began to extend their influence into important state affairs and manipulate decisions.

However, they had been deeply entangled for so long, and there hadn’t been a suitable excuse to drive them out.

But finally, the opportunity had come.

No one could stop the Prince’s determination to clear them all out for the future.

The Queen fully supported her son in this matter. She too had harbored an inner aversion to them.

At first, the Earl of Wallace wasn’t overly concerned.

‘They’ll exclude me from this anyway.’

He knew that Vivian, his wife, had no affection for him. But she was sensitive about the position of “Earl of Wallace” that would someday belong to her son.

Therefore, she had always covered up all the extravagance and wrongdoings of the earl. When her son inherited the title, there should be no blemishes.

But when his secretary came to him half-crying, the earl could no longer afford to be complacent.

“The countess has gone down to the estate.”

She needed to remain in the capital to handle this matter. Why would she suddenly leave?

“Did she even leave Henry behind?”

“…The lady and the countess’s representatives are officially missing.”

“Officially? Then…”

“She took them down with her. It seems she had many things to hide, including the astrologers.”

“Then what did she say about me?”

His voice rose in urgency.

The secretary, seeming nervous about the soldiers nearby, hunched his shoulders and carefully said:

“She left without giving any instructions, so we’re in a difficult situation too. Moreover, the royal court has frozen all of the earl’s accounts, and taking this opportunity, the collateral relatives are claiming that the estate management and everything else belongs to them…”

The more he heard, the more the Earl of Wallace burned inside. But there was nothing he could do.

For days, he just berated his secretary, demanding he come up with countermeasures, when the secretary, looking even more haggard than usual, came and said:

“Master Henry has passed away.”

“What… are you saying? Henry? Why?”

Though he was his son, there wasn’t particularly any affection. From birth until now, he had been raised by his wife with almost no contact with the earl, and he was so frail and twisted in character that he wasn’t a child one could easily become attached to.

Nevertheless, he was the child who would inherit the earl’s position. So he was an invaluable existence to him.

But Henry was dead?

“Anyway… they say the countess is out of her mind right now. I’ve heard that she even chased away the astrologers who always accompanied her…”

The earl knew well how obsessed his wife was with their son. If she was venting her anger on the astrologers she had worshipped like gods, then she truly had no capacity to worry about the earl.

And from the next day, the secretary no longer came to see him.

The earl sensed it. The Wallace family was in such chaos that even his secretary had given up and fled.

That means the family’s wealth was also rapidly diminishing.

He became anxious. At the same time, he thought this was an opportunity.

An opportunity to completely take the Wallace family into his hands.

But to do so, he needed someone who could help him in this situation. Someone with the influence to persuade not only the military but also the Prince.

The earl immediately made a fuss about wanting to meet Ryan.

No matter how suspicious he was, they couldn’t keep ignoring the request of someone with an earldom. The military conveyed the earl’s request to Ryan, and after thinking for a moment, Ryan agreed.

It wasn’t particularly out of consideration for the earl.

‘He’s the beginning of all my misfortunes.’

Now that everything had gone to ruin, he was just seeing him one last time for closure.

After asking the soldiers to leave them, once they were alone, the earl immediately proposed to Ryan:

“I’ll make it possible for you to become the Earl of Wallace.”

“What are you…”

Ryan was dumbfounded by this sudden nonsense. Misinterpreting Ryan’s attitude as merely setting the mood, the earl continued with his explanation:

“Henry is dead. Vivian seems to be out of her mind. So now is the opportunity to completely take over the Wallace family.”

The earl spoke proudly, as if revealing some great truth.

“It’s an opportunity for you to become a real nobleman. If you miss this chance… If I put you forward as the official heir, there’s no one who would strongly object right now. Vivian is too busy trying to recover her rights to pay attention to anything else, and all those pathetic astrologers have fled.”

The earl’s face brightened even more as he continued.

“As for public opinion, the council nobles will make a fuss about presenting a bastard, but they’ll agree that the earldom must be maintained… and everyone will acknowledge you, who has achieved such great merit.”

Despite Albion’s hostility toward illegitimate children, throughout its long history, there were records of several bastards who had succeeded in inheriting their families.

Only when the lineage was completely cut off, or when the illegitimate child showed overwhelming ability and achieved great merit.

The current situation of the Wallace family corresponded to both conditions.

From the beginning, the Wallace family was not one that empowered its collateral branches. Therefore, although collateral branches existed, they were little more than vassals, and if a suitable heir appeared who could threaten the position of the direct heir…

‘None of them survived.’

Men from the collateral branches who were similar in age to Henry, or rather, who reached an age where they could inherit the family, all ended up dead.

Some died after suffering from unknown illnesses, while others died in sudden accidents. There were survivors, but they acquired severe and fatal disabilities.

Seeing this, the Earl of Wallace was convinced that the misfortunes that befell them were no coincidence.

He knew that Vivian had always been busy moving before news of them came.

Despite being such a person, Vivian had not laid a hand on Ryan. From the beginning, illegitimate children were not targets of danger for her. And after he entered the military and received Baron Stanford’s protection, she couldn’t easily touch him.

“His Highness the Prince highly values your achievements and will grant you anything. If His Highness stands as your guardian, what problem would there be with you being illegitimate?”

The Earl of Wallace nodded, wearing a satisfied expression as if his thoughts were extremely brilliant.

“So help me get protection. I was merely caught up in this; I truly have no connection with the Lensk forces. How could I join hands with such lowly beings?”

It was true. In the earl’s nature, the people of Lensk would not even be considered human.

“We must hurry. I hear that the collateral branches are nibbling away at the family’s wealth while there’s no master. So quickly help me get out so that yours too…”

The earl’s voice was excited.

He was someone who had personally witnessed the Council repeatedly diminishing Ryan’s achievements because of his commoner origins.

An ordinary person would have felt deep wounds and a thirst for status after such humiliation.

When told he could inherit the position of a historic high noble, who in Albion could refuse that?

Status is an object of envy for everyone. No one can deny that.

It was while the earl was thinking this.

“Earl of Wallace.”

Ryan’s voice, cold enough to freeze just by hearing it, came through.

“Is that all you have to say?”