I was truly, sincerely impressed.
Wow.
If I had been that merchant guild master, I really think I would’ve pissed myself just now.
And a short while later,
the guild master returned, personally carrying a box containing the ledgers and transport contracts.
&
I naturally stepped forward and took it from him.
The box was quite a bit heavier than it looked.
The merchant leader couldn’t hide the unease in his eyes, yet
he tried hard to keep his voice confident.
“If it turns out that there was no wrongdoing, then the Deharmont side must offer a formal apology.”
“Of course.”
Serafinrie answered without the slightest hesitation.
At those words, the merchant leader let out a small sigh.
His expression seemed to say that he was not completely finished yet.
He opened the door for us himself,
and we left the merchant guild building just like that.
The air outside was colder than inside.
The slanting sunlight lay long and oblique across the floor of the outer alley,
and a thin haze of dust drifted through it.
From afar came the low mingled sounds of cart wheels and horses neighing.
As we headed toward the estate with the box in hand,
I was the first to speak.
“He seemed pretty confident. Do you think evidence will turn up? He didn’t bring only part of it to hide something, did he?”
“That’s not likely.”
Serafinrie shook her head.
“If he did that, he’d simply be giving us grounds to overturn everything completely.”
“Then we just need to search the ledgers carefully?”
“If it comes to it, we can tie him up with something else.”
I nodded slightly.
Nobles almost never admit fault easily.
It isn’t easy even in front of other nobles,
let alone before a commoner merchant guild.
There were plenty of people who would rather insist on dying than do that.
So if someone on Serafinrie’s level made up her mind and latched onto the ledgers,
it probably wouldn’t be difficult to drag in some other reason and connect it.
In other words, the outcome was practically already decided.
“But I have no intention of doing that, and I shouldn’t.”
When I tilted my head, she continued explaining.
“There’s no way the other nobles won’t know. That I forced the matter. If that happens, when I lead Deharmont in the future, they won’t trust me.”
“Ah. Then let’s make sure we find it. I don’t know how much help I’ll be, but I’ll do my best.”
When I looked at her with a smile, her eyes widened, then she abruptly turned her head away and said quietly,
“Thank you.”
“…What are you doing?”
Aileen, who was beside me, glared at me.
“Uh, cheering her on?”
“I’m helping too, so what about me?”
So I tried to cheer her on too, but Serafinrie cut in.
“Stop talking and hurry up. We don’t have time.”
Watching Serafinrie stride ahead quickly, Aileen looked dumbfounded.
I looked at her, nodded, and made a gesture,
and she clicked her tongue, smiled, and quickly moved on.
But just as we were about to cross the square to get to the estate—
“Lady Serafinrie? Lady Aileen, and even Lord Rayon. Haha, what a coincidence.”
At the sudden voice, we all turned our heads at the same time.
It was Viscount Depiros Gremory.
The last light of the setting sun happened to shine on him, making him look truly picturesque.
His ash-gray hair fluttered lightly in the wind,
and his violet eyes were smiling, yet somehow concealed a hidden depth.
We were a little surprised, but greeted him naturally.
“What brings you here, Viscount?”
“Haha, one of the merchant guilds I once helped has a branch here as well.”
Depiros answered with a gentle smile.
“I was planning to stop by the Deharmont family anyway. A merchant guild I’ve been assisting has a good deal to propose.”
Serafinrie nodded briefly.
“I hope your discussion with my father goes well.”
Just then, Depiros’s gaze stopped on the box I was carrying.
“Is that, by any chance…”
After seeing the emblem carved into the side of the box, he nodded very slightly.
“I thought so.”
Depiros seemed to understand the situation.
“The Infinite Carriage Merchant Guild.”
Then he made a disgusted expression.
“They’re crafty ones. Please examine it carefully.”
At that moment, Aileen asked,
“What kind of method did they use back then?”
Depiros drew a small stroke in the air with his finger.
“They intentionally added a single stroke. In a way only they understood.”
“A stroke?”
“When I first saw it, I thought it was simply a mistake. A dot, a stroke. It was only that much. And not all of them were like that either.”
At those words, Serafinrie’s eyes changed for an instant.
“A stroke…”
“Was there one?”
“I saw it. But nothing came of it there.”
Depiros nodded.
“I also realized from that stroke that something was there. If you discovered such a stroke, then there is probably something as well.”
“Thank you.”
Depiros lightly bowed his head.
“I hope you achieve good results.”
Then he walked off in the opposite direction,
and after watching his back for a moment, we headed straight for the estate.
***
Two days.
The two of them had been practically shut up in the office, clinging to the ledgers.
Tap.
Tap.
Serafinrie tapped the desk with her fingertips as she turned through the ledger,
while Aileen flipped quickly through the papers, stopped,
went back again,
then moved on to another page.
On the desk, transport contracts and ledgers,
storage transfer records and delivery slips were piled in layers.
Darkness had already settled heavily beyond the window gap,
and the candle wax had melted and hardened several times over.
I was looking through them from the side too,
but to be honest, compared to the two of them, I could hardly see anything.
“Phew.”
Aileen was the first to close the ledger she had been looking at.
“I don’t see anything.”
Serafinrie also let out a short sigh.
“This is serious. We need to produce results within five days.”
There was definitely something there.
But nothing in the documents caught.
Of course, there were things we could force into a case.
But that was the last resort.
Aileen pointed to one line in the ledger with her finger.
“Isn’t one unit of spice missing here?”
“They covered it with their own money.”
“This side is the same. They filled this one in themselves too.”
Aileen shrugged.
“Looking at this, whenever a problem comes up, they resolve it well on their own. If you only see this, they look like a diligent merchant guild.”
At that moment, Serafinrie’s eyes flashed, and she stood up to look at what Aileen had been reading.
“A merchant guild that resolves problems well even when they happen.”
Serafinrie murmured in a low voice.
Aileen raised her head.
“What do you mean?”
“Exactly that. Looking at these, it happens often.”
Serafinrie quickly examined the ledgers.
“It’s frequent, but always at a level they can sufficiently handle themselves.”
“Intentional?”
“Yes.”
“But we can’t point to that as the problem.”
Serafinrie nodded as if she agreed.
But her eyes narrowed.
“That’s exactly why I’m more certain.”
A hunch.
Serafinrie’s intuition had activated once again.
And so the two of them searched through the ledgers again.
Aileen could have complained, but she voiced no dissatisfaction.
Another two days passed like that.
And still.
Nothing came out.
“At this rate, we may have to force the issue in the end.”
Aileen said quietly.
Serafinrie pressed hard against the space between her brows.
“Haa.”
Then she suddenly lifted her head
and looked at Aileen.
“Depiros. How did that man seem to you?”
“He’s intelligent.”
Aileen immediately grasped her meaning and nodded.
“He might be someone who can resolve this situation.”
“Can we trust him?”
“That, I don’t know.”
A brief silence passed.
Serafinrie tapped the desk. Tap, tap.
Then she skimmed through the ledger once more and nodded shortly.
“We should investigate him first.”
Aileen agreed with that opinion as well.
Serafinrie quickly sent someone to look into him.
At that moment, I was admiring the judgment of the two of them.
In this situation, he was someone who might become the key point.
Even so, they did not act hastily.
Since they had only asked the information guild to find out the basics,
the information arrived without taking long.
Aileen received it and checked.
“Yes. Most of what he said is written here.”
“Good. Then we can receive his help, right?”
Even then, Aileen hesitated for a moment.
“I think this is a judgment you should make. But if you’re asking my opinion anyway, I’m slightly more opposed.”
Serafinrie briefly closed her eyes, then opened them.
“Call him.”
Aileen said nothing more.
As if respecting Serafinrie’s decision, she quietly nodded.
Serafinrie then ordered someone below to summon Depiros,
and briefly left the office.
And at that moment, Aileen came over to me.
“Have you found anything?”
“Mm…”
I looked down at the contract I was holding.
“No matter how I look at it, I really don’t see anything in particular. I want to be of some help, but I’m too stupid to be useful.”
Aileen smiled.
There was not the slightest mockery in that smile.
“Everyone has things they’re good at. And.”
She leaned in slightly.
“Don’t think you’re not helping, Mr. Rayon.”
“You’re praising me because you’re worried I’ll feel embarrassed.”
“I mean it.”
Aileen spoke quietly while meeting my eyes.
“Because you’re here, Mr. Rayon, we can focus without getting distracted.”
I looked at her with a face that asked what she meant.
At that moment,
the door opened and Serafinrie came back in.
The instant Serafinrie saw Aileen standing in front of me, her gaze changed completely.
“In that short moment?”
“It’s nothing. We were just talking for a bit.”
“What were you talking about?”
Aileen glanced at me once,
then deliberately spoke even more clearly.
“That Mr. Rayon is a great help just by being here. That we can focus without thinking about anything else.”
Serafinrie shifted her gaze to me.
Then she nodded with an indifferent face.
“Aileen is right.”
As she returned to her seat, she added casually,
“Whenever I think of you, I resolve it by looking at you.”
“…Pardon?”
I froze on the spot,
and instinctively looked at Aileen.
Aileen’s gaze had turned sharp.
“I thought we agreed to play fair?”
“…”
Perhaps embarrassed by what she had said herself, Serafinrie absolutely refused to meet my eyes and only shrugged.
Then Aileen abruptly turned her gaze toward me,
her eyes narrowing.
“Maybe I should just lock you up so you only look at me.”
“…Pardon?”
I truly didn’t know.
What expression I was supposed to make at a time like this.
What I was supposed to say.
What I was supposed to think.
So I simply stared blankly into empty space.
***
Depiros had also entered
Serafinrie’s private office.
As soon as Depiros came in, he shifted his gaze straight to the documents.
Then, after looking over them here and there,
he spoke.
“Do you happen to have a separate ledger for the Infinite Carriage Merchant Guild managed by Deharmont?”
“We do.”
Showing an outsider ledgers directly managed by the family was improper.
However, in this situation, there was no helping it if they only separated the materials related to the Infinite Carriage Merchant Guild.
As though she had expected this, Serafinrie handed him a ledger she had prepared in advance.
Depiros accepted it, opened it, and began examining it silently for a while.
Only the faint sound of pages turning could be heard.
He looked at the ledger,
looked at the transport contracts,
then returned to the ledger again, repeating the process.
Then he began setting aside several documents.
A short while later,
he spread the pages he had separated out in front of us again.
“Please look at this.”
He held up one transport contract.
“Do you see the seal here?”
“Yes.”
“This part.”
He pointed to a very small section with the tip of his finger.
“The spot where the seal was stamped runs along an extremely faint fold line.”
“…”
Serafinrie narrowed her eyes.
At first, it was hard to see.
It was so trivial that even to her eyes, it barely showed.
Depiros placed another contract beside it.
“Please look at this one as well. It’s a document from the same period, but the pressure mark of the seal is different.”
Serafinrie looked back and forth between the two documents.
And then.
Truly faintly,
the difference began to appear.
“Don’t tell me…”
“That’s right.”
Depiros nodded very calmly.
“They must have made it in advance. It means they knew it would become military provisions. The seal was stamped afterward.”
Serafinrie drew in a very shallow breath.
Aileen looked at it too and nodded,
but even after seeing it, I couldn’t make out anything at all.
“No matter how I look at it, I really can’t tell.”
“That’s only natural.”
Depiros looked at me and smiled gently.
“It’s so subtle that even Lady Serafinrie would miss it unless she knew what she was looking for.”
Serafinrie continued staring into the documents, her eyes growing sharper and sharper.
“What happened in my case was a little different, but ultimately, it was this sort of method. Fortunately, I was able to find it.”
Depiros exhaled as if relieved.
“I’m glad we found it quickly. In a situation like this, time is truly important.”
Only after gaining certainty did Serafinrie look at Depiros and bow her head.
“You have been of great help, Viscount. I will be sure to repay you for this matter.”
“I would like to say there’s no need, but…”
Depiros softened the atmosphere a little.
“I’ve heard Deharmont does not leave debts unpaid. Since you’ll do so one way or another, I will accept it gratefully.”
Serafinrie also smiled faintly.
“Once again, thank you. I’ll contact you later.”
“Yes. Then.”
Depiros lightly bid us farewell and left the office.
Only after the door closed did Aileen look at Serafinrie and say,
“He was quite considerate.”
“He was.”
“He looked through the family ledger as little as possible, only saw what he needed, and immediately withdrew. He didn’t seem to have any other intentions.”
“Right.”
Viscount Depiros Gremory.
Once again, I got the impression that he was truly a noble worthy of being called a noble.