Chapter 15

"And on top of that, we only caught you this time because we showed up in person. Who knows how much you've skimmed off us over the years."

"N-no, never! This was the first time, I swear!"

The count practically shouted his lungs out, but Iberin shook her head.

"You've already broken our trust once. Brazen enough to send fake claims, and on top of that you came marching to our door to throw a fit."

"Ugh."

Count Alketa dropped his head like a man who'd given up on everything.

But Iberin had no intention of stopping at Count Alketa.

She was planning to clean out the other five who had come along that day too—Alketa was just the first.

"I'll be collecting that protection fee I mentioned."

"B-but one billion gold is impossible! Madam!"

"Those nobles who came with you. You weren't planning to send word about today's events to them, were you?"

"Pardon?"

If Alketa sent a runner to tip off the others, the rest of the shakedown would fall apart.

And honestly, one billion gold was unrealistic, even by her own measure.

Annoying as he was, getting what she could right now was the more practical play.

If she actually slapped them with a billion and they just rolled over and said go ahead and gut us, we can't pay, she'd be left with nothing.

So Iberin had thought it through.

"If you stay silent about what happened today, and don't say a word to anyone, I'll lower the protection fee."

"…H-how much."

"Since you're the first, and given the state of your finances—fifty million gold a month."

The Forest of the World Tree being close by aside, the land here was fertile and farming did well.

Apparently, the area where the Forest of the World Tree now stood had been the empire's greatest grain region thousands of years ago.

It was contaminated now, useless land.

Either way, fifty million gold a month was less than half the count's monthly tax revenue.

"V-very well!"

"In exchange, not a word about today to anyone. If you leak this information and we find out…"

Iberin let the warning hang.

"I-I won't breathe a word!"

"Good. Let's draw up the contract."

She gave him a thin little smile.

Ether had looked confused at first, but the conversation seemed to have wrapped up nicely, so he beamed up at Iberin with a hehe.

She smiled back, all sunshine, and ran her hand over his round little head.

Over the next several days, Iberin swept through the remaining noble houses and squeezed fifty million gold a month out of every one of them.

The pitch was the same each time.

I'll give you a small discount compared to the other nobles. But this stays a secret. Absolutely.

With the Grand Duke standing right in front of them and their lies already exposed, the nobles had no choice but to sign on the spot.

Sure, what she'd said sounded watertight—but these nobles were all chummy with each other, so the truth could still leak eventually.

By the time it did, though, it would be too late.

They'd signed the contract, and one of the clauses read: Shall not be disclosed to any party. Another read: Should either party disclose the existence of this contract to anyone, they shall pay five times the agreed amount as a breach penalty. Furthermore, the breaching party shall be reported to the Imperial Capital Court regarding this contract.

The breach penalty they could try to wriggle out of, but court was another matter.

This would be Grand Duke Lecashe filing suit against a noble. There was no way it wouldn't reach the emperor's ears.

At least on the surface, every emperor in living memory had sheltered the Lecashe Grand Duke.

If the fact that they'd been bleeding him dry got out, they'd never escape punishment.

"Heh heh."

By the time they figured it out, it'd all be too late.

Iberin let out a low cackle.

That came to three hundred million gold a month coming in. Pure win.

She'd cleanly excised the cancerous nobles, so the only task left was…

"What are you staring at."

This man.

---

Wrapping the whole business up in a mere two days, Iberin huddled with Rotte and Tami at Viscount Pumple's estate—their last stop—and put her head together with theirs.

"His Highness says he doesn't approve of how I'm raising Ether. And he doesn't seem to have any intention of budging."

"Just keep doing what you've been doing, Lady Iberin."

"That's not going anywhere, though."

"No, you got him to laugh that one time! That was my first time seeing His Highness too!"

"…Huh? Really?"

"Yes. He normally never leaves the east wing. The first time a whole pack of nobles showed up was also a first for me."

"Huh."

"Butler Hamong used to handle everything for His Highness personally. Even I rarely got a glimpse of him."

That was Rotte's addition.

"Before you worry about getting him close to young Master Ether, I think the priority should be getting you close to His Highness first, madam."

That was exactly why she'd been visiting the east wing every day, but all she'd done was reinforce the walls.

She'd even cooked up this whole outing as an excuse to be around him, and yet she didn't feel a hair closer.

She could count the things Lyssel had said all day on her fingers.

That was when Rotte spoke up.

"Lady Iberin. Don't you dare give up."

"Huh?"

"You are His Highness's only light and hope!"

Iberin smiled awkwardly.

Rotte had been getting a little weird since some point recently.

Iberin wanted to ask what was up, but Rotte had gone from blunt and emotionless to genuinely alive, and that felt good to see, so she let it slide.

Tami was the same way.

"That's right! I'm rooting for you, madam!"

"Well, you obviously should be."

"Hehe."

"Okay, but seriously, what do I actually do?"

"Wanna sleep with him?"

Tami's cheeks went pink, and Iberin's answer came back without hesitation.

"You've lost your mind."

"He came out once, didn't he? That's how young master got here. Twice should be easier."

"No, the bigger question is how Ether even happened between us in the first place."

"…Hmm. Fair point."

Apparently neither Rotte nor Tami had any answers on that front either.

"I was hoping we'd grow closer on the trip back, but yeah, that's not happening."

Iberin muttered.

Neither Rotte nor Tami could pin down a clear answer.

She had to get close before she could try anything else.

"Still, he laughed once—it's not like there's no hope at all, right?"

"If he laughs twice, we'll be calling it love."

"What else would it be."

"Get out."

"No, listen—a man like His Highness laughing isn't easy. So twice? That's absolutely love."

It was completely absurd, but Tami sounded so taken with the idea that Iberin couldn't help cracking a smile.

The girl had clearly been reading too many romance novels.

Although, technically speaking, this was a romance novel—the problem was Iberin's attention was entirely fixed on Ether's bright future.

Sorry as she was to say it, Lyssel had only ever been a secondary piece in her plan to lay an even smoother road for Ether.

Which was why his cold treatment didn't sting all that much.

Part of it was that this was a novel and not really her own life, but it was also because Iberin was a character whose death was already scripted.

She'd already given birth, and she'd already been handed a terminal diagnosis.

The original story hadn't gone into detail about how or why Iberin died, so she didn't know the specifics—but the cause traced back to giving birth to Ether.

"So basically, push myself on him whether he's uncomfortable or not?"

"Yes! No question!"

"But I already told him I wouldn't."

"Promises are made to be broken."

Rotte and Tami snickered together.

Just like Iberin did when she was hatching one of her own little schemes.

---

After squeezing fifty million gold out of the viscount like the rest of them, they left.

The six houses that bordered the Forest of the World Tree were the only ones in that immediate ring, but plenty of other houses had also filed damages claims.

The south was bigger than she'd thought.

And Iberin had no intention of leaving any of them alone either.

She needed to claw back three or four times what had been stolen before her chest would stop burning.

For all the talk of fifty million a month, these other nobles didn't send claims monthly—the annual sum they'd been milking was nowhere near insignificant.

She'd left appropriate instructions with Pons before leaving the area.

If not fifty million, then at least a thousand gold a month in protection fees.

Every house that had ever filed a damages claim, no exceptions.

The catch was that none of those houses had ever filed just once.

Once word got around that the six core nobles had been wrung out and had quietly handed over fifty million each, the rest of them—unless they wanted the same treatment—would have to start paying up.

She'd told the six nobles to keep their mouths shut on pain of legal action, but Pons, who had spent his life building connections in the capital, was busy mobilizing every contact he had to spread the rumor.

"Heh heh heh."

She'd had no intention of stopping at just shaking down the money, and even Lyssel, who'd heard every detail of her wicked plan, looked stunned.

"Anyway, we're going to need to head to the capital before long."

"…Madam. I can't leave the Forest of the World Tree."

"Not even briefly?"

"No."

"Really not?"

"No."

Her face fell, and her eyes drifted to the floor.

Lyssel flinched slightly, looking just a touch concerned.

Iberin had no way of knowing this, but for Lyssel, even visiting the six noble houses had been a major decision—a major step.

He'd never once left the area around the Forest of the World Tree in his life.

Lyssel's life had been slaughter, and more slaughter.

Nothing but slaughter.

The Lecashe life was a path drenched in blood from end to end.

But he'd never once thought that was strange.

He'd been taught from childhood that this was how it was supposed to be.

And then Iberin kept showing him a life that ran counter to everything he'd been taught.

Loving your child. Protecting your house. Getting angry on someone else's behalf. Laughing and chatting with other people.

All of it was foreign to him.

A Lecashe had to be strong.

A Lecashe could not know love. They existed only as the empire's guard dog.

"…If His Majesty permits it."

"Hm?"

"If His Majesty grants permission, I'll go."

It was strange, but strangely it didn't feel bad, and without realizing it, Lyssel had been letting Iberin pull him along this entire time.

---

She'd planned to play at being a little friendlier on the way back.

But Lyssel must've read her mind, because he didn't even get in the carriage—he just took a horse and rode off alone.

She didn't even get a chance to say a word.

"Hah."

By the time she made it back to the Grand Ducal Estate, days later, still too dumbfounded to know what to say, Lyssel was already holed up in the east wing.

He'd arrived well ahead of her and hadn't shown his face once.

The only person fearless enough to walk in and out of the east wing was Pons.

The bigger kicker was that the second Iberin arrived, Lyssel took off for the Forest of the World Tree.

She didn't get a chance to so much as say hello.

"You said get close to him, but he has to actually stay at the estate for me to even pretend!"

"Ugh. We didn't see this one coming either."

Rotte's whole face crumpled in frustration.

That said, the trip hadn't been a total loss.

Beyond Lyssel handing over full authority to Iberin, Pons seemed to have revised his opinion of this cunning—well, at any rate, scheming—Iberin.

Although clearly what had really turned him around was seeing how the estate had been running and how she treated Ether.

"Lady Iberin."

"Hm?"

"The moment His Highness returns, I'll schedule a conjugal night."

"Not you too, butler…"

Iberin mumbled it with an expression that was practically on the verge of tears.