Chapter 134. Young and Tender Pillars (2)
Ciella stared blankly at the brightening dawn light.
Without even tidying her disheveled hair, she simply lay blankly in bed, watching the morning sunlight slowly creep in.
“I’ll go have breakfast first.”
“…”
Blanc kissed Ciella, who was so exhausted she couldn't even properly answer him, and covered her with the blanket.
Ciella, too limp to react properly even to Blanc’s gentle touch, simply lay there.
“Is this meat stew?”
Arriving at the dining hall alone without Ciella, Blanc tilted his head at the heavy menu for breakfast.
“If you’ve exerted yourself, you need to replenish your strength.”
Emilia placed the stew in front of Blanc with an unpleasant smile.
“Why are you smiling?”
Even at Blanc’s question, Emilia simply maintained a sly smile and quietly attended to him.
“Is it alright for the head maid to be standing around like this with nothing to do?”
Though it was called attending to him, unlike other nobles, Blanc basically did his own necessary tasks, so what Emilia was doing now was simply watching Blanc eat.
“The sounds I heard last night were so sweet, they sounded to me like the sound of the Cadmus family prospering.”
Emilia looked at him with an expression that said, ‘To think our child has grown up so much,’ but Blanc just quietly stuffed the bread in front of him into his mouth.
The surrounding servants were shocked to see Emilia casually joking with Blanc, a nobleman with the title of Count and the lord of Norington, but they soon nodded in understanding.
She was the one who had escaped the burning mansion, fraught with the threat of death, with the young Blanc.
If Norington had been a nation instead of a territory, Emilia would have been like a founding contributor.
“Stop grinning.”
“To think you’re still using the word ‘grinning’ now that you’ve become a Count.”
Blanc just shook his head at Emilia, who replied with a wide smile.
“The Count needs to have many heirs. The vassals are anxious about the lack of a successor.”
Emilia, a mere head maid, spoke without hesitation words that even the scribe, butler, treasurer, diplomat, and knight commander of the Cadmus family could not easily bring up.
She was a person with that right.
“…”
Blanc tried to ignore Emilia’s words and simply ate with a business-like attitude.
“Even the late Lady Nedrian, if she were here now, would have wanted more grandchildren…”
“I get it. I said I get it.”
Emilia, Nedrian’s most cherished maid.
When she pulled out her treasured sword, a weapon only she could wield, Blanc shook his head and finally surrendered.
“Isn’t it time you found a partner for yourself? I’ll provide a hefty dowry for your marriage.”
However, even as he was falling, the Sixth Knight of Aselheit managed to land a sharp blow.
“I’m going to stay with the Cadmus family for the rest of my life. My goal these days is to serve the baby who will inherit the Young Ma… the Count’s blood as a wet nurse.”
Listening to Emilia’s words, Blanc chuckled and ate his soup.
“The word ‘wet nurse’ literally means a mother who gives milk. Can a maiden who isn’t even married become a wet nurse?”
Blanc raised his spoon, pointed at Emilia, and said.
“You may stay here for the rest of your life, but it seems becoming my child’s wet nurse is impossible.”
Struck by an unexpected blow, Emilia froze in the exact posture she was in while looking at Blanc.
“I have to work, so get my clothes ready.”
Blanc shot a cold sneer at Emilia and rose from the dining table.
Even as he opened the door and left the dining hall, Emilia’s body remained rigid.
“…I suppose I’ll have to look for a man.”
Finally unfrozen, Emilia quietly made a resolution.
As it happened, this Norington was teeming with promising, age-appropriate men.
***
“…There is no money.”
Bonas, looking as if he would breathe his last at any moment, handed over the ledger with trembling hands.
While accepting the ledger with his hands, Blanc’s eyes were on his pitiful treasurer.
“I am ashamed.”
Bonas, who would have preferred a hefty pouch of gold coins over Blanc’s apology, closed his eyes tightly.
“The problem is time. If we can somehow manage the funds until this summer, then from then on!”
Seeing the worst habit of a merchant, relying on the uncertain expected value of the future, Blanc couldn’t help but sigh.
It was none other than himself who had pushed the administrative supply officer of the Liberation Front, respected by all in his past life, this far.
“For now, with this at least…”
Blanc handed Bonas the investment money he had received from Count Berger.
However, Bonas, who had confirmed the amount just by the weight of the gold pouch through his excellent merchant’s sense, squeezed his eyes shut.
“…This is not enough, my lord.”
With the couple extorting money from him in pairs and yet never filling it up enough, Bonas was also beginning to feel the limits of his patience.
“At this rate, bankruptcy…!”
“Let’s sell Count Cohen.”
Blanc quickly cut off Bonas' words before he could finish.
However, his words were not an oppressive command of authority, but a proposal with a reasonably valid basis.
“Sell… sell him? Can we sell him?”
Who Count Cohen was wasn’t important to Bonas.
Just at the mention of money, Bonas' face began to light up.
“No, my lord.”
However, there was someone who rained on Bonas' parade.
“He is Count Cohen, who can be called Prince Aleid’s closest aide. He is not someone who can be sold for mere money. For us, who will have to confront him in the future, he will serve as an important negotiating card…”
“Mere money! Aren’t your words too harsh!”
When Nicholas, Blanc’s advisor, tried to block the source of the money, Bonas roared.
“Do you even know where your salary comes from to be saying such things now! At this rate, the territory could really go bankrupt!”
“Even so, we cannot miss out on a great future gain for the sake of immediate relief!”
Watching his vassals argue without backing down an inch, Blanc quietly fell into thought.
“Enough.”
Although Blanc encouraged the free exchange of opinions among his vassals, he was a man who made decisions decisively and coldly.
“I have decided.”
At Blanc’s command, Nicholas and Bonas quickly shut their mouths and waited for his words.
“Let’s sell Count Cohen. So far, not to mention Prince Aleid, even his family has shown a lukewarm attitude towards hostage negotiations, so it’s hard to think he’ll be a useful asset in the future.”
Hearing Blanc’s words, Bonas clenched his fists and let out a silent cheer.
“Nicholas, find the lords who will buy him for a high price as quickly as possible.”
At Blanc’s words, Nicholas bowed his head and replied that he would do so.
Count Cohen, who had made the first move just before Blanc occupied the territory of Kamora.
A born swindler and schemer, he had expanded his influence through petty and shallow tricks rather than legitimate means.
Due to such actions, there were lords who held a grudge against Count Cohen not only in Gartaria but also in the Kingdom of Anton and the Kingdom of Felix, so there would be no major difficulty in selling him to secure some urgently needed cash.
“Consider it done.”
Bonas, hearing that money was coming in, left Blanc’s office with a beaming face.
“Next matter?”
No matter how diligently Ciella looked after Norington, there were tasks that only the lord, Blanc, could accomplish.
“The envoys sent by the Second Prince Theobald are waiting.”
At Nicholas' words, Blanc recalled them from last night’s banquet, looking strangely dejected.
“I should at least meet them once.”
Blanc had already decided what kind of relationship he would establish with Prince Theobald.
“Let them in.”
Having organized his thoughts on Theobald, Blanc summoned the Second Prince’s envoys.
When Nicholas signaled a servant, a group of middle-aged men soon entered, bowing their heads to Blanc.
“It is an honor to meet you, Count.”
Despite being sent by a prince, a rank higher than a count, the envoys bowed their heads first as they entered, and Blanc smiled.
He had already heard what Ciella, the lady of the Cadmus family and his wife, had accomplished.
“Sorry to have kept you waiting.”
If Ciella had paved the way for him, all he had to do now was to maintain that tone.
“What did you wish to speak about that you came all this way?”
Blanc naturally maintained a confident and arrogant posture, but the envoys of Theobald couldn't help but think that the look suited him well.
A young, ambitious lord who also possessed the ability to match.
“Speak.”
For he was the one who ruled everything here.
***
The envoys of Theobald, who had come out of Blanc’s office, let out a deep sigh.
“Like wife, like husband.”
The envoys, who had faced Blanc who exuded an even greater presence than Ciella, continuously wiped the sweat from their foreheads with their handkerchiefs.
“Still, it’s a relief we weren’t turned away at the door.”
“Well… I wonder if this is the result we truly wanted.”
The envoys had told Blanc that they wanted to form a united front with him to face Aleid, but Blanc had been skeptical about it.
“It is certainly difficult to face Prince Aleid with just our forces and those of the County of Cadmus.”
Blanc had said that he needed time as he was not fully prepared to launch an all-out war right now.
And he had also said that, if possible, he wanted them to rally the remaining forces of the First Prince.
“Will he really join the war?”
Although Blanc had said he would raise his banner against Aleid when the time and preparations were right, the envoys could not fully believe his words.
“For now… we’ve achieved half our success just by preventing him from growling at our backs.”
In fact, Prince Theobald had sent the envoys hoping that Blanc would not bare his teeth at him, more so than for his cooperation.
This was because the lord named Blanc Cadmus was classified in the world as a lord with a hegemonic tendency.
A very young lord who rose from revenge and, not content with reclaiming his own territory, had brought down the territories of the three barons one by one.
Not only that, he was a man who had even cut off one of the legs of Count Cohen, who had been illegally occupying his territory.
For Theobald, who had such a violent lord at his back, it was a situation that could not help but make him break out in a cold sweat.
“Since we’ve achieved our initial goal, let’s return for now. Just creating a good atmosphere with the Cadmus family is an achievement in itself.”
The envoys of Prince Theobald nodded and agreed with his words.
***
“Is it alright to let them go back like this? You could have pressed them more.”
Nicholas had tried to squeeze more out of Theobald for Norington’s benefit, but Blanc did not do so.
“This is enough.”
For Blanc, the development of Norington was important, but his biggest task was to fend off the approaching Void.
A great disaster was coming that would one day require humanity to unite its strength.
Knowing this, Blanc had no intention of draining the energy of Theobald, who had a similar goal.
Moreover, Theobald’s forces were helpful to Blanc just by their existence.
“Because the longer the Prince’s Rebellion lasts, the more time we can buy.”
Norington, having suddenly expanded in size, was currently rife with unstable elements.
Time would be needed to stabilize them.
Since Blanc’s reasoning made sense, Nicholas nodded.
Blanc turned his head to look at the seed placed neatly on his desk.
“Will you help me?”
Blanc idly flicked the seed with his finger.
At the pleasant resilience he felt at his fingertip, Blanc smiled.