Pirina's face turned deathly pale as she tried to cling to the Duke.
"Duke! Please, listen to me first... huh?"
Unexpectedly, the Duke was not holding a sword.
Instead, something nearby reflected a glint of light.
"Oh, whoops."
As all eyes turned toward him, Carl spoke in a tone as if he had carelessly dropped a small bell.
However, despite his casual tone, he did not put the sword away.
Casually tilting the blade in his hand as if merely playing with it, Carl let the reflected light cast a shadow of the sword over the Viscountess's neck.
"Hrk."
Pirina felt death closer than ever before.
"W-what are you doing?! Duke, please stop him! Surely, you won’t just stand by and watch the Aslan heir cut down his own blood relative?"
Rather than clinging to the other nephew, who had remained utterly unresponsive throughout her ordeal, Pirina now desperately appealed to the Duke.
"...You’re noisy."
Carl's gaze gleamed dangerously as Pirina’s shrill pleading grated on his nerves.
At that moment, the Duke finally spoke.
"Carl."
Carl, who had been just about to relieve her of at least one limb even if he didn't go for her neck immediately, looked up at the Duke in mild surprise.
"Later."
Of course, the Duke wasn’t stopping Carl out of any concern for the Viscountess.
‘Later? So he’s saying he doesn’t care whether I get cut down or not, just not now?!’
As she inwardly reeled from the implications of his words, the Duke looked at her with the same expression he used when regarding a subject for interrogation in the dungeons.
"There is something I need to hear first."
"Hmm."
Carl withdrew his gaze from the Viscountess’s wrist, where it had been hovering with a chilling intent.
"If that’s the case, by all means."
Go ahead first.
Acting like a polite young man courteously offering his turn, Carl finally sheathed his sword and stepped back.
However, his gaze, still harboring the intention to sever something, did not waver in the slightest.
Shudder.
Pirina trembled at the dehumanizing coldness in his eyes, which regarded her as little more than an insect.
‘Treating a noble like this without even a royal trial?! Even if they are the Aslan family, this is too much.’
Despite being visibly cowed, the Viscountess clung to her inner rationalization.
Sure, the young heir might be acting out recklessly, but the Duke, the head of the family, would be different.
‘Whatever his reasons for doing this to me, he won’t just mistreat a fellow noble like this. The political burden would be too great.’
Surely, he would apologize for his son's excessive behavior and settle this through negotiation rather than escalating things further.
Pirina, feeling reassured by her rational thinking, glanced up at the Duke—only to freeze.
"First."
The moment she met his golden eyes, burning with a quiet yet seething rage, she realized how foolish it was to rely on reason in the face of such fury.
"Tell me where you spent the gold I sent."
Pirina’s ordeal had only just begun.
This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.
The Duke's golden eyes, seething like molten gold—akin to the stories of old Aslan lords who poured liquid gold over their enemies' throats—bore down upon her.
"Which filthy creature got the gold that was meant for the child? Speak clearly."
His voice was dangerously low, pressing her for the names of the accomplices who had embezzled the funds meant for Beatty’s upbringing.
The weight in his words was even more terrifying than the blade Carl had just drawn—because it meant those responsible wouldn’t be granted the mercy of a quick death.
Pirina frantically tried to force her sluggish mind to work.
‘The gold for her upbringing... He means the money sent by the Aslan family. That means... he doesn’t know about the other matters yet, does he?’
With so many skeletons in her closet, she had to be careful with her words. She couldn't afford to let something slip and get caught on a different charge.
"...Is that why I was dragged here so disgracefully? Over the child’s allowance?"
Pirina, mustering what little defiance she had left, probed cautiously.
When the Duke gave no immediate reaction, she felt a small sense of relief.
‘Thank goodness.’
Among the many illicit dealings she had been involved in, the issue of the child’s funds was one of the least severe.
‘So what if I took a bit from the gold the Aslan family sent? It’s only fair compensation for raising the child, isn’t it?’
Pirina felt no guilt whatsoever as she reasoned with herself.
"It seems there has been some misunderstanding."
With a faint, sly smile, she spoke in a dismissive tone, as if none of this was a big deal.
"It was just a minor household matter... Perhaps the servants exaggerated things when reporting it to you."
Clicking her tongue, she feigned exasperation at the so-called incompetence of the lower-class staff.
"And surely, Duke, you understand, don’t you? Children at that age require a lot of care. Raising one in the capital costs a fortune."
The amount of gold the Aslan family had sent was more than enough to build half a dozen mansions in prime locations within the capital.
And yet, here she was, making excuses about the cost of raising a child.
The Duke remained silent.
"..."
The Duke’s gaze deepened at words that weren’t even worth responding to.
‘If she keeps spouting such pointless nonsense and wasting my time—’
His mouth closed in silence as he considered whether he should resort to more forceful measures to make the conversation more productive.
‘...Did my excuse work?’
However, Pirina completely misinterpreted the Duke’s silence and eagerly continued to flap her mouth.
"As you know, children these days are nothing like when I was young. They’re so much more unruly. Of course, our..."
‘Wait, what was that kid’s name again?’
Unable to immediately recall it, Pirina smoothly glossed over her words.
"...Our niece wasn’t necessarily like that, of course. But she never even considered how much the Aslan family was sending for her upbringing, constantly begging for things..."
Pirina was in the middle of fabricating a story about Beatty’s supposed extravagance, even though she couldn’t even remember the child’s name—
Thud.
A soft sound echoed from a corner of the hallway.
It wasn’t loud, just the sound of something light dropping to the floor.
But immediately afterward, familiar footsteps could be heard, drawing both the Duke’s and Carl’s gaze toward the far end of the corridor.
"...Little one?"
With his beastkin-enhanced eyesight, the Duke could clearly see every delicate feature of the small child standing far away.
Her dark, glistening eyes wavered as if someone had thrown a stone into a still pond, tears welling up at the edges.
The Duke’s face, for a moment, showed a rare flicker of alarm.
But Beatty, the one he had just called out to, wasn’t in a state to notice her father’s change in expression.
Her small hands, having gone limp without her realizing it, had let go of her cherished acorn pouch.
"You... sent me an allowance...?"
Her trembling voice broke the silence.
***
‘Aunt?’
The moment Beatty spotted Pirina standing in front of the Duke’s office, she doubted her eyes.
The woman who had always emphasized that nobility must be elegant at all times had her hair, usually styled high and immaculate, now in disarray.
The dress she had always insisted must be flawless was wrinkled and creased.
The sight was so unlike the aunt she remembered that Beatty’s eyes widened in shock.
Then, as she almost locked eyes with one of the guards stationed near the restrained woman—
‘Ah!’
She instinctively ducked back behind the corner.
‘Why does Aunt look like that...?’
What on earth was happening?
Her small head spun as she tried to make sense of the situation.
But no matter how much she thought about it, Beatty had no way of understanding what was going on.
‘...I have no idea.’
Feeling a little deflated, an inexplicable unease settled in her chest.
Memories of the capital estate—the bad ones—crept up on her, making her heartbeat quicken in anxiety.
Clutch.
Without realizing it, she hugged her acorn pouch tightly against her chest.
‘I should listen and figure out what’s going on first.’
So, crouching behind the corner, Beatty perked up her ears.
What she heard next left her feeling strangely dazed.
Unlike the confident and dignified figure she had always seen in the capital, Pirina now stood before her father like a criminal, bound and desperately spouting excuses.
Meanwhile, her father, wielding both a sword in one hand and judgment in the other like the god of justice, relentlessly interrogated her.
Then, amid their conversation, Beatty’s ears caught onto a word she couldn’t simply ignore.
‘Allowance?’
At first, she hadn’t understood who her father meant when he said, "the gold meant for the child."
But as she continued listening, it became clear.
Even Aunt Pirina explicitly said it—
"The allowance sent by the Aslan family for their niece’s upbringing."
Beatty had never heard of any other "niece" living in the capital estate.
So by process of elimination, that "niece" could only be... herself.
‘The Aslan family... sent money for me?’
She unconsciously repeated the words in her mind.
‘They didn’t just discard me to my maternal family for free...?’
Absentmindedly, she bit her soft lips as a memory surfaced.
Pirina had always clicked her tongue and said,
"Tsk, tsk. Honestly... where else would you find a deal as bad as this?"
This chapter is updat𝙚d by freeweɓnovel.cøm.
A bad deal.
That meant Beatty had been more of a financial burden than a benefit to her.
"You should be grateful. Do you know how rare it is to have such a merciful aunt like me?"
The expensive maintenance of the estate in the capital, the cost of feeding a child who ate needlessly, the money spent on clothes she wouldn’t wear for long—
All of it, expenses her "merciful" aunt had shouldered because of the burden Beatty was.
Pirina had always been angry that she had to spend more than she wanted.