# 18
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The corners of my lips rose in a wry smile.
'Hirose, this smart young man!'
I don't know exactly what Hirose said, but it seemed like the man was quite willing to admit who was behind him.
“Count Vadelmon Elmore... paid us a thousand coins... for killing you, ma'am.”
“Wait a minute.”
I put my hand on my forehead.
“My value is only a thousand coins?”
"What?"
She grabbed the confused man's shirt and growled.
“Only a thousand coins?!”
"Oh! Please save me!"
“This is an insult! Damn it! Not ten thousand, not a hundred thousand, but a thousand coins to kill me?!”
The man looked at me as if I was a dangerous lunatic.
“Don't we deserve to experience that? A long time ago.”
He began to tremble and plead, as if imagining something terrifying.
“Ah! Please don’t do… those things… my blood is too dirty for your noble body!”
“Blood skincare? It's gone out of fashion, but your skin looks perfect for my new bag collection, doesn't it, Hirose?”
“Definitely better than the last one.”
While I was exchanging this strange conversation with Hirose, the man looked at me with astonished eyes while raising his hands in surrender
The reputation of “the fiercest lady in the empire” came in handy in such moments.
“I will tell everything! Just please leave me alive...”
I sighed with false sadness as I examined him from head to toe, as if I was sorry that I would not skin him.
“Can you testify in court?”
“The court?”
“Yes, I intend to sue Fadelmon Elmore.”
With this, I will also end the alleged inheritance dispute raised by his relatives.
“But...if I testify, they will kill me!”
“Okay, you can decline, I would be happy to add you as bag number 72 in my collection, your skin tone is very beautiful... although I will need to smooth it out a bit first.”
When my eyes flashed fiercely, he put his forehead on the ground, trembling.
"I'll do it! But...but there's something else."
He looked at me warily and asked.
“Count Vadelmon is not the only one who sent us... There are others...”
“Ah, other relatives?”
He was horrified when he saw my already knowing reaction.
I smiled and muttered as if I was talking to myf.
“I have other plans to deal with them, just focus on Vadelmon.”
“But if I testify against them, they will kill me...”
“Isn't that better than becoming a handbag? Think carefully.”
“Ahhh!”
His eyes were filled with horror as he looked at my madness.
“I will do it...please...”
“I will send you pen and paper later. I want a detailed confession for the case file. I should like it.”
"Yes! Yes! I will do it!"
I nodded and turned to leave the cell, while Hirose followed me.
“You seem to have a talent for taming prisoners, Hirose.”
With my suspicions about Hirose's mysterious past, I decided to search his room after giving him another mission.
I thought he became a servant because of his father's debts, but I found out that he has no connection to the previous servant, which means his current name is fake.
Among his things, I found an old logo for the “Prospectors Group.”
“No, ma'am.”
Fortunately, I found no evidence that he betrayed the family or sold their secrets, so it seems that matter is in the past.
'Anyway, it doesn't seem like he's been in contact with them recently.'
I will be watching him cloy to find out his story.
“Anyway, it's good that he agreed to cooperate.”
As we walked, I remembered something and stared out the window.
“By the way, I imagine the relatives meeting is now in chaos!”
* * *
“These idiots!”
In a gamble filled with cigarette smoke, Vadelmon Elmore furrowed his eyebrows at his man's report.
“They can't even handle one woman?!”
But his eyes were fixed on the slowly spinning gambling wheels.
When the wheels stopped losing, he hit the table hard, attracting everyone's attention.
He left his seat angrily, waddling like a penguin.
“My lord, the count...”
His stepmother's brother inherited the title of duke and all of the family's fortune, while Vadelmont was merely given the title of count with no significant land.
He considered himf lucky that the Duke had only one daughter – a girl with a bad character and who did not seem intelligent.
But after the Duke's death, things did not go as planned.
“There are no competent men... at all...”
“Sir, Count!”
Another servant came running.
“Your uncle and cousins are at the palace protesting!”
Apparently they knew of the failure to kill Catherine and came to confrontation.
“How hasty, huh!”
As he grumbled, he had to get up.
“What an annoying girl! It would have been better if she had simply died!”
Why make things so complicated?
He left the gambling house and got into his car.
Before he set off, the gambler grabbed his cart.
“Sir Count, the 30,000 coins you borrowed... were supposed to be repaid today.”
Vadelmon's eyes narrowed.
“I also forgot two days ago, if you please, I will send one of my men to collect the money from the palace...”
“Oh! How dare a bastard like you enter Elmore Manor?!”
Vadelmon shouted angrily.
As a noble of Elmore, he considered himf above a lowly gambling manager.
But today, the gambler was determined.
Behind him stood large men with menacing looks.
Despite his rage, Vadelmon was in no position to resist – all of his killers were locked up in the prisons of the Duchy of Elmore.
He suddenly changed his expression and smiled a fake smile.
“I promise! Next time I will pay back 40 thousand instead of 30!”
The face muscles of the gambler - who was actually the band leader of the prospectors group - trembled as he remembered Catherine's instructions.
“Actually, I have a big deal coming up...”
For Vadelmon, it was no lie – in his mind, Catherine's inheritance was already his.
“Then give me something as security for your promises.”
“Hah!”
After hesitation, he took out a small key from his pocket.
“This is the key to the safe of important documents in my palace. Even I cannot open it without it. Is that enough?”
The leader of the prospectors group took the key as he remembered Catherine's instructions.
“Yes, Sir Count.”
* * *
Duke Luciano Ellimore.
He was the most talented son the Elmore family ever had.
Naturally, he inherited the title of Duke of Elmore.
But in the family's strict succession system, there were many losers.
Some of them held lower titles, or bought titles, and lived far from the main branch, involved in provincial politics.
“Speak, Vaddelmoner!”
A man with angry white eyebrows – Vadelmon's uncle – was looking at him angrily.
As the eldest son, he was passed over in favor of Vadelmon's father and Luciano, becoming a minor descendant.
Now he and others of Ellimore's relatives have come to confront Vadelmon after the plan failed.
“That's right! I was so confident!”
In addition to the uncle, there were aunts and cousins shouting at Vadelmon.
They all knew about the fiasco of the Doberton attack.