The belief that Deharmont could move money.
It was an attack meant to tear that very belief apart.
And trust—
Once torn,
no matter how many gold coins were poured in, it would not return to its original shape.
&
“Family Head!”
An administrator came running from the end of the corridor, nearly falling over himself.
“The merchant guilds?”
The head of House Deharmont was no longer sitting in his office.
He was crossing the corridor himself, dragging along his massive body.
He had only hastily thrown an outer robe over silk sleepwear.
Beneath his disheveled collar, the thick flesh of his neck swayed,
and his sweat-soaked forehead shone with oil.
But his eyes alone were not dead.
Rage.
Anxiety.
And an obsession with not collapsing until the very end.
Those eyes pressed down on the entire corridor.
“Haron arrived first, and they say Rabeck and Serean are sending representatives as well!”
“And the noble bastards?”
“Baron Loenberg and Viscount Midern have come in person...”
“Don’t let them in!”
The family head’s roar rang thunderously through the mansion.
The candle flames trembled.
A servant running down the corridor flinched.
An administrator holding a ledger hugged the bundle of papers tighter to his chest.
The family head pointed at the department heads.
“Release more funds to the south!”
“Family Head, that side doesn’t have much to spare right now either...”
“I said release them!”
Bang!
When his fist slammed down on the table,
the ink bottle toppled, splattering ink everywhere.
“Add twice as much for the Haron Merchant Guild! Those Rabeck bastards—I saved them before, didn’t I? Make them repay that debt!”
“Y-yes!”
“Viscount Midern still has debts remaining on his wife’s side. Dig those up!”
“We have records on Baron Loenberg’s side as well.”
“Good. Bring them all!”
Orders poured out.
Money.
Favors.
Weaknesses.
Debts.
Lifelines.
What Deharmont had accumulated was not only gold coins.
A hand extended to someone on the verge of ruin.
A scandal buried under the family name.
A promissory note stopped just before default.
A debt erased before marriage.
All the leashes they had held with a smile until now.
In this moment, all of them became weapons.
Light was power,
and darkness was power as well.
“What about the royal side?”
the family head asked, turning his body.
“We’ve already sent people!”
“To whom?”
“To a councilor in the Second Finance Office, and a clerk in the Military Provisions Settlement Department...”
“That low?”
The family head’s face twisted.
“Raise it to vice-minister level. No, go even higher!”
“B-but at this hour...”
“Wake them up if you have to! Those bastards ate my money to get where they are—if they don’t move now, when will they move!”
He breathed roughly.
People were running so hard the entire mansion seemed to shake.
Administrators crossed the corridors with ledgers in their arms,
and servants moved along the walls with faces that looked close to tears as they replaced candlesticks.
Someone spoke as if clinging to hope.
“Family Head. It isn’t completely over yet. The central army provisions issue is only a partial shortage, not all of it, and the overlapping collateral rights are still just claims between two sides. If we can soothe the merchant guilds...”
“Yes. That’s right.”
The family head immediately nodded at those words.
“It isn’t over yet.”
Those words were not meant to reassure others.
They were closer to words he was saying to himself.
“Deharmont has stopped matters even bigger than this.”
“Yes, yes!”
“What matters now is sealing this off before rumors spread! We just need to somehow pin down the royal investigators. We only need to endure today!”
***
The royal conference room.
Documents were piled high on the table.
A report on the partial missing winter provisions of the central army.
A list of suspended receipts for tax advance promissory notes.
Requests for credit reevaluation from major merchant guilds.
Documents accepting claims of overlapping Deharmont collateral rights.
And.
A short report placed on top of them.
[Deharmont side attempting to manage the situation through multiple connections within the royal court.]
Baron looked down at that sentence for a moment.
Someone spoke in a low voice.
“They are moving as expected.”
“Of course.”
Baron was utterly calm.
“They’ll be trying to survive.”
“There is still a high possibility that the true culprit lies elsewhere.”
“I know.”
“And yet you will cut them off?”
“Yes.”
There was not the slightest hesitation in Baron’s answer.
“Because what matters right now is not the true culprit.”
“...”
“It is cutting them off before the question becomes how far the royal court has rotted along with them.”
The conference room fell silent.
Baron tapped the table once with his fingertip.
Tap.
“The provisions are missing.”
“...”
“The tax advances are wavering.”
“...”
“The merchant guilds are hesitating over Deharmont’s promissory notes.”
He tilted his head ever so slightly.
“The moment we shield Deharmont here, the next blade points at the royal court. Or should I call it poison?”
No one could refute him.
A problem greater than Deharmont collapsing
was the picture of the royal court collapsing together with Deharmont.
Baron closed the document.
“The investigation continues.”
“Yes.”
“But the announcement is now.”
“To what extent?”
“Revocation of military provisions settlement rights.”
At Baron’s first words, the people inside nodded lightly.
“Recovery of tax advance rights.”
And at the words that followed, their expressions began to change little by little.
“Restriction of promissory note issuance, and reexamination of collateral rights.”
Someone swallowed their breath.
With an expression devoid of any emotion, Baron spoke the final words.
“The moment we save Deharmont, the royal court will be suspected.”
“...”
“So by punishing Deharmont, we cut off the royal court’s wrongdoing and its ties first.”
Scapegoat.
No one said the word aloud.
But everyone knew.
Baron was not letting the true culprit go.
At this moment, he was merely choosing what to save first: royal authority.
“Any objections?”
Then someone raised a hand.
“If Deharmont collapses... who will do the things they have been doing?”
Yes.
The truly great problem.
It was precisely that.
Military provisions settlement.
Tax advances.
Royal promissory note credit guarantees.
Collateral document management.
Credit guarantees for major merchant guilds.
And countless other things besides.
That was why Baron could not answer immediately.
He stared into empty air for a moment, then gave a hollow laugh.
“We’ve been properly struck.”
There was no pleasure in that laugh.
***
“They say a messenger from the central army has arrived at the outer castle.”
“...”
“And the royal investigator is with him...”
This time, no one in the office could move.
They had come.
Truly.
Seraphinlie raised her head.
From that moment on, every sound inside the mansion seemed strange.
The sound of someone’s running footsteps.
The sound of doors opening and closing.
Shouts.
Panting breaths.
All of it mumbled as if heard underwater.
It felt as though the entire mansion was slowly sinking.
Seraphinlie looked down at the hand she had placed on the ledger.
Then she slowly closed the ledger.
Thud.
Ironically, the sound of the ledger closing was far too loud and clear.
***
The royal investigator entered with an emotionless face.
Beside him stood the messenger from the central army,
and farther inside the corridor, Baron Loenberg, Viscount Midern,
and even the representative of the Haron Merchant Guild had already taken their places.
The heart of the Deharmont mansion grew cramped in an instant.
Originally, this was a place that constricted the breath of others,
but today, it was the opposite.
The family head stepped forward first.
“Investigator.”
“Head of House Deharmont.”
“This is someone’s scheme. We, too, are currently...”
“That may be so.”
The investigator’s voice was excessively calm.
That calmness made it even colder.
He took out a document from inside his coat.
“Partial missing winter provisions of the central army.”
“...”
“Suspension of receipts for tax advance promissory notes, multiple claims of overlapping collateral rights, credit reevaluation by major merchant guilds.”
Line by line.
The more he read, the colder the air became.
The family head clenched his teeth.
“Do you think I don’t know that right now? Someone is targeting Deharmont—”
“I said that may be so.”
The investigator looked straight at the family head.
“The problem is.”
And then he spoke the next words with absolute clarity.
“The royal court cannot trust Deharmont and wait right now.”
That single sentence was the end.
Whether Deharmont had been wronged,
who the true culprit was,
who had made the first move.
It meant none of that mattered in the slightest to the royal court right now.
The royal court had decided to cut off Deharmont in order to prevent its own damage.
The investigator unfolded the document.
“I proclaim this in the name of the royal court.”
“...”
“As of today, Deharmont’s military provisions settlement rights are revoked.”
A shadow fell over the family head’s face.
But that was only the beginning.
“Your tax advance rights are recovered.”
The shadow deepened.
“Your issuance of promissory notes is restricted, and your collateral rights will undergo a full reexamination.”
Someone quietly swallowed their breath.
“Some related working-level personnel will be placed under immediate royal inspection.”
The air inside the office froze.
One administrator dropped the ledger from his hands.
Thump.
The thin sound of it falling onto the carpet rang out strangely loud.
The family head took one step forward.
“How dare...”
The words were filled with rage.
They certainly were.
But within them was a tremor.
Unease.
Urgency.
And fear rising from somewhere very deep.
The investigator did not so much as blink.
“Will you resist?”
He raised his pen.
“If so, I will add it to the record.”
The family head’s mouth stiffened.
A silence descended in which no one could even breathe properly.
The faces of the Deharmont people turned pale one by one,
and the family head’s back bent.
That back, which had seemed so broad.
Now, it looked strangely small.
Seraphinlie was watching that scene.
The document in her hand trembled faintly.
“Truly...”
A low voice slipped from between her lips.
“It ends like this?”
Those words stole away even the last remaining air.
However.
Though the family head’s back had not fully straightened,
his fists had not unclenched either.
***
Even after the royal investigator left,
the Deharmont mansion did not completely collapse.
At least not outwardly.
The pillars still stood tall,
the chandelier still poured out golden light,
and the red carpet still stretched long down the corridor.
There were people as well.
The administrators were still running about,
the servants still served tea while watching for reactions,
and the department heads still held onto ledgers with trembling hands.
And so, at first.
Truly, at first.
There was an illusion that this was not the end.
“What are you standing around for!”
The roar of the head of House Deharmont echoed to the end of the corridor.
“Do you think Deharmont disappears this instant just because our authority was revoked? In any case, those people can’t function without us!”
The family head’s shout was frightening, but at the same time it was stirring the embers that remained.
“Call the Delkain Merchant Guild again!”
“F-Family Head. Right now the royal side is watching...”
“What about their eyes!”
Bang!
His fist slammed down on the table.
The ink bottle overturned, black liquid spreading over the paper.
“Who saved those Delkain bastards last year?”
“Deharmont did.”
“And Ruberion?”
“We turned funds around for them twice when they were on the verge of default.”
“What about the Martel Merchant Guild!”
“When they nearly lost their northern transport rights, we...”
“Exactly!”
The family head bared his teeth and laughed.
“If they know gratitude, they’ll come back. Debts don’t disappear. Lifelines don’t disappear either. We can protect this mansion!”
“Yes, yes!”
“The noble bastards are the same. Reexamination of collateral rights? What a joke. Who organized all those documents? Who kept those bastards’ debts breathing until today!”
They had lost many things.
But they were not ruined.
As long as they were not ruined,
they could rise back to this point again.
“Move, all of you!”
The family head swung his arm.
“Meet the merchant guild representatives again before the day is out. Send the documents back to the nobles. The royal side isn’t finished either. In the end, if they want the system to run, they need our hands!”
“That is correct, Family Head!”
“Deharmont will not end like this!”
“We can rise again!”
The same voices began to join in from here and there in the corridor.
At first, one administrator.
Then one department head.
Then even a few of the noble guests nodded.
“Even so, where is there any place like Deharmont?”
“The royal court will eventually withdraw it too.”
“Once a little time passes, they will reach out again.”
As those words piled up, the atmosphere changed again.
Inside the mansion, which had seemed like a ruined funeral hall just moments before,
a familiar arrogance slowly began to return.
Seraphinlie watched that sight from afar.
Her father poured out orders like a man come back to life,
the administrators moved at his words,
and a few nobles still believed there was value in standing on Deharmont’s side.
Perhaps.
Just maybe.
Even she, for the briefest moment, almost wavered.
How had Deharmont come this far?
From even lower than this,
it was a house that had climbed its way up.
“Yes. We can rise again—”
Serafinrie could not finish her words.
Rattle.
The door opened.
“My lord!”
“What is it this time!”
“The Delkain Company has sent someone!”
The family head’s eyes flashed.
“See?”
He looked around at everyone.
“I was right, wasn’t I? I told you they would come!”
He lifted his chin, almost like a victor.
“Let him in.”
A moment later,
an administrator from the Delkain Company entered.
But something was strange.
There was no obsequiousness on his face.
If anything, it was excessively cold.
Without even bowing deeply,
the administrator held out a sealed document.
“This is a message from the head of the Delkain Company.”
“Yes. It seems they’ve finally come to their senses.”
The family head snatched up the document with a sneer and unfolded it.
For one very brief moment.
His face hardened.
“…What is this?”
The administrator spoke, still standing perfectly upright.
“In accordance with the royal announcement, the existing contract concluded with Deharmont has immediately entered a state of non-performance.”
“What?”
“Your side no longer possesses the legal qualifications to fulfill the contract in question.”
The room went silent.
“Accordingly, the Delkian Company hereby declares the immediate termination of said contract and is preparing to file a claim for compensation for breach of contract and resulting damages.”
“…”
“In addition, delays and losses in transport caused by Deharmont’s decline in credit will also be calculated separately.”
Thud.
The document fell from the family head’s hand.
“You son of a—!”
“My lord!”
Just then, another working official rushed in.
“The Ruberion Company has sent the same document!”
“Maltel has also declared a review of the contract!”
“Demidern says they’re suspending all payments entirely…”
It happened in an instant.
The air that, only moments ago, had been saying that “Deharmont will stand again,” froze solid.
The last spark.
For a moment, it had truly seemed as if it would blaze up fiercely.
But it was nothing more than a desperate struggle, flaring just before its final ignition.
On some unknown continent, they called this:
Huiguang Fanzhao.
“Call them. Call them all back.”
“My lord… the royal announcement has already gone out…”
“I told you to call them back!”
A shout burst out,
but this time, it was different from before.
There had been certainty in his shout a moment ago.
Not now.
At that moment, another administrator entered.
This time, it was from the nobles’ side.
“A letter has arrived from the Viscounty of Midern.”
“…Read it.”
“Following the royal announcement of a reexamination of lien rights, the validity of existing collateral under Deharmont’s management will be subject to a full review, and we hereby notify you that responsibility for any delays and losses arising in that process lies with your side.”
Those words scattered the last remaining embers.
Even the hope that some small spark might still remain within them
was trampled out and extinguished.
The family head’s body swayed.
“Ah…”
He gripped the edge of the table.
“It’s not over yet.”
His voice cracked hoarsely.
“It isn’t over yet.”
The words sounded as if he were saying them to himself more than to anyone else.
“Deharmont cannot fall from something like…”
His voice grew lower, bit by bit.
“Something… like…”
His fingers slipped from the table.
Thud.
The family head’s body collapsed to the floor.
No one rushed to him immediately.
Not because it was too sudden.
But because Deharmont,
so dazzling,
so exalted,
had fallen.
And because it had been so high,
the impact was too great for it to ever rise again.