novelraw Chapter 4 : Chapter 4
Chapter 4 : Chapter 4
Chapter 4
Baron Horn had been spending his days in agony.
Instead of lying in a comfortable bed, he was sprawled across the damp floor of a prison cell, and no one would even meet his eyes.
“Damn it, what in the world is going on?”
More than anything else, what was driving Baron Horn mad was the uncertainty.
To begin with, Prince Noel had gone insane.
That Prince Noel, who had no telling what he might do next, had seized the note Baron Horn had been trying to send to one of his subordinates.
Because of that, there was no way of knowing what would become of the physical assets he had so carefully accumulated.
Still unaware that his assets had already been seized, Baron Horn spent the entire day letting his imagination run wild.
“No. Calm down. Prince Noel is an idiot. He will not be able to do anything properly.”
Even so, he could not let go of hope.
Up to now, Prince Noel really had been incompetent.
So Baron Horn could only keep clinging to the hope that Noel had failed to uncover any decisive evidence.
If he could just come up with a convincing excuse for why the contract had changed over the past three years, would that not be enough?
After all, the Mernia diplomat was on his side too, so perhaps they could still talk their way out of it somehow.
“Baron Horn.”
Baron Horn, who had been lying there in a daze for quite a while, opened his eyes at the sound of someone calling his name.
What? Who was calling for him?
“What? Were you calling me?”
Baron Horn slowly pushed himself upright and looked beyond the bars.
Then his eyes met Douglas', standing outside the cell.
“You there. I asked if you were calling me.”
The moment Baron Horn realized someone was speaking to him, his face brightened at once.
“Get up.”
But the casual way Douglas addressed him made him frown immediately.
“What division are you from?”
He was wearing a knight’s uniform, so he was obviously of lower status than me—
Before those words could leave his mouth, Baron Horn jolted in alarm and slapped his own cheek.
This was not what mattered right now!
“No, no. Listen, would you run an errand for me? I can pay you enough to make your jaw drop.”
Baron Horn hurriedly shut off the overbearing instinct that had flared up automatically.
Have I lost my mind?
This is an opportunity.
I need to think about how to win this man over, and quickly.
“I belong to Prince Noel’s direct Audit Team.”
But Douglas' answer made Baron Horn’s mouth fall open all over again.
Prince Noel’s direct Audit Team.
What was that supposed to mean?
“What kind of nonsense is that? The Audit Team disappeared ages ago.”
“When was it ever created?”
Watching Douglas' firm expression, Baron Horn began to feel a creeping sense of dread three seconds later.
What was this?
Was it real?
There had been an Audit Team?
Since when?
How had he never heard of it?
“Come with me.”
Douglas opened the cell door and tied Baron Horn’s hands together with rope.
Naturally, Baron Horn struggled, but the difference in strength between them was far too obvious.
“W-where are we going? Shouldn’t you at least tell me?”
“Obviously to see His Highness.”
“What?!”
The thought of having to face that mad prince again was horrifying.
But more horrifying than that was the fact that this knight kept speaking to him so casually.
At first, it offended his pride.
But the more he thought about it, the more it seemed like a very bad sign for his personal safety.
“What is this? Are you going to execute me on the spot or something?”
“Who knows.”
“What do you mean, who knows?! If I have been falsely accused, are you saying you are just going to kill me anyway?!”
“Who knows.”
Douglas kept giving the same response over and over.
That only made Baron Horn feel even more desperate.
But the truth was, “who knows” was the only thing Douglas really could say.
“Then at least tell me what Prince Noel said!! What exactly is going on inside that bastard’s head?!”
“Who knows.”
Because Douglas genuinely had not been told anything.
Bring Baron Horn to the office.
Do not concern yourself with status, and speak casually to him.
Do not reveal a single detail about the progress of the investigation.
That was the only information Douglas had been given.
“You really do not know anything, do you? Right?”
“Yeah.”
“No, you do not! If you know anything at all, then say something!”
“Hm?”
Fear born of ignorance.
Baron Horn was quickly ensnared by the first trap Prince Noel had laid for him.
One bizarre, unimaginable situation after another kept unfolding, and from Baron Horn’s perspective, the worst possible outcome was the only thing that came to mind.
As Baron Horn wavered back and forth in panic, Douglas silently dragged him toward Prince Noel’s office.
Knock, knock, knock.
“Come in~”
At the sound of Prince Noel’s leisurely voice, Baron Horn squeezed his eyes shut.
Then he quietly tried to steady himself.
“I have brought Baron Horn.”
“Good. Sit him down here.”
Baron Horn’s eyes darted rapidly around the room.
Prince Noel’s desk was piled high with all kinds of documents.
And the prince was smiling faintly as he picked up a few of them.
Are all those documents about me?
“Sit.”
In truth, there were not that many documents on Baron Horn among them.
But Prince Noel had arranged them to make it look that way.
It was part of the advance work for the psychological battle he intended to wage against Baron Horn.
And it was working perfectly.
“Your daughter, it turns out, was not sick?”
Prince Noel’s very first words were about his family.
He intended to imply that he had conducted a thorough investigation into Baron Horn’s background.
“Pardon?”
“You said you committed wrongdoing because your daughter was ill. But she has been going to work just fine, and she has not been to a hospital for nearly a year.”
“N-no! A physician visited the house directly, so I think other people simply do not know!”
“None of the people legally qualified as doctors say they have ever treated your daughter.”
At Prince Noel’s decisive words, Baron Horn shut his mouth.
So he really did dig into my background.
The current Prince Noel is not the gullible fool I used to know.
“The contract was a lie, the story about your daughter was a lie, it was all lies.”
As Prince Noel muttered to himself and examined the papers, Baron Horn grew deeply unsettled.
What exactly were those documents?
What was he reading one by one like that?
How much of his crimes had he uncovered?
“You look like you have a lot of questions. Go ahead and ask one. I might answer it.”
At Prince Noel’s offer, Baron Horn answered carefully.
“How much time will you give me to prepare a Rebuttal?”
Prince Noel was faintly surprised inwardly by Baron Horn’s sharp question.
He is no fool.
“A period to prepare a Rebuttal?”
In Yeramerian, criminals other than those already condemned to death were given time to prepare a Rebuttal with the priests.
That was, if there were volunteers willing to help them.
However, the length of time allowed for preparing a Rebuttal varied depending on the severity of the crime.
So by asking this question, Baron Horn was trying to assess both the seriousness of his offense and whether or not he would be executed.
“Three days.”
“Three days......”
Baron Horn quietly turned Prince Noel’s answer over in his mind.
Three days meant a serious crime was certain.
Whether it would lead to execution remained unclear.
Did that mean they had judged the Embezzlement to be of the worst kind, or had several other crimes also been bundled together to place him in this range?
“I can hear your brain spinning.”
Prince Noel smiled as he looked at Baron Horn, and Baron Horn lowered his head.
“No, sir.”
“Yes, you are.”
Seeing that reaction, Prince Noel felt a slight sense of regret.
A well-educated man with legal knowledge.
This fellow had not become the chief diplomat to one of the world’s great powers for nothing.
That absurd contract trading bricks for diamonds had exposed him to Prince Noel, but the groundwork beneath it had actually been laid quite carefully.
“But what a shame. There is not a single priest willing to help you.”
At Prince Noel’s next words, Baron Horn nearly lost his composure again.
Not a single priest willing to help him?
Could it be...
“I already asked every priest in Yeramerian for their decision.”
In Yeramerian, just as priests had the freedom to help criminals, they also had the freedom to refuse them.
“That cannot be true.”
“For your information, Priest Henry was the very first to cut ties with you.”
“What?!”
And in the case of a criminal whom every priest refused to defend, immediate punishment became possible.
“Henry would never do that!”
“I will show you Henry’s Signed Statement saying that he would.”
Prince Noel had not actually asked every priest for their opinion or collected all their Signed Statements.
That would have taken far too much time in practical terms.
“Henry’s actual signature......”
Instead, he had obtained Signed Statements from a few people who had been close to Baron Horn in ordinary times.
That alone was enough to deal a psychological blow to Baron Horn.
“You committed national Embezzlement by dragging Mernia into it. Who would want to help you?”
Of course, if there had been some extraordinary friendship, perhaps someone might have stepped forward.
But it was not easy for people who had gathered around shady dealings to preserve any truly great friendship.
All the more so if each of them had families of their own.
“Ha.”
Baron Horn despaired.
Yeramerian had been deteriorating at an even greater rate ever since its king collapsed and Prince Noel began serving as Acting Regent.
Everyone had spent decades living in a culture where lining one’s pockets was simply taken for granted, yet he himself had barely managed to profit from it a few times!
Regret and a sense of injustice tormented Baron Horn.
How much effort had he poured into setting up this entire scheme with the Mernia diplomat!
“You know that confessing can reduce your sentence, right? Do not make this tiresome by taking it all the way to execution. Confess, and at least save your life.”
Looking at the broken Baron Horn, Prince Noel spoke as though he were showing mercy.
In reality, it was a faint threat cloaked in the mention of execution.
“Your Highness.”
But after quietly mulling over those words, Baron Horn’s expression shifted yet again.
“You do not have any decisive physical evidence, do you?”
No matter what anyone said, he was still a veteran elite who had lived as one of Yeramerian’s finest talents.
Even in this moment, he instantly found a possible way to survive.
“What?”
“You do not, do you?”
The current Prince Noel would never urge a truly heinous criminal—someone certain to be sentenced to death—to confess.
He would never show that kind of mercy.
Clinging to that single belief, Baron Horn made one final desperate attempt.
“There is no way Mernia would have responded this quickly to Yeramerian’s request for assistance, either.”
“Hah.”
Prince Noel, wearing an expression of disbelief, felt a flicker of admiration.
This man really had not risen to that position carelessly.
“I know. So I sent a letter to Prince Ryan. I asked him to help because the country is collapsing.”
At those words, Baron Horn wavered again.
Prince Ryan?
That prince, of all people, might very well have stepped forward to help out of pity for suffering people, regardless of his own nation’s pride.
“You cannot even accept a chance when it is handed to you. Fine. Just take the death sentence.”
“W-wait a moment!”
Prince Noel thought that if he delayed any longer, Baron Horn might truly start to catch on.
So he forcefully imposed a strict time limit.
If you do not confess now, you die.
He pressed the man with that simple message.
“Hey. And there is something you keep forgetting.”
The final warning was one that only Prince Noel could deliver.
“I am a prince.”
“Pardon?”
“I could have you killed right now for Treason. Even if there really were no evidence.”
At Prince Noel’s chilling words, all the color drained from Baron Horn’s face.
I have lost my mind.
Why did I forget that Prince Noel was insane and try to outthink him?
“I beg your pardon, Your Highness. I beg your pardon!”
Baron Horn immediately threw himself flat before Prince Noel.
That is right, this bastard was originally called a fool because he was too soft-hearted and simpleminded.
I should have groveled while there was still even the slightest trace of that kindness left in him!
“I was actually trying to spare your life out of the barest minimum of mercy, and this bastard—”
“I am sorry! I am truly sorry! I spoke out of terror and misspoke!”
“Let go of me, you bastard! Let go!! Douglas, get him off me!”
“No!”
Clutching at the hem of Prince Noel’s trousers, Baron Horn burst into loud sobs.
Because he had now fully realized that the current Prince Noel could truly have him beheaded on the spot.
“Please! At least spare my life, Your Highness!”
“Ah, no~ Maybe if you brought me ten people who embezzled longer than you and sold out the country worse than you did.”
“I can bring them to you!”
A big catch.
Prince Noel stopped in his tracks.
Then he suppressed the facial muscles that nearly made him break into a delighted grin and instead looked down at Baron Horn with a grave expression.
“And why should I believe you?”
“B-because it was through my ability and my connections that I rose to this position and remained there!”
A fair point.
“For now, the priests may say they will not help me, but so long as Mernia is not implicated, I know many people who would still step forward for my sake!”
That, too, was true.
“I will not disappoint you!”
From Prince Noel’s perspective, that was still something yet to be proven.
But there was no denying that it was an enticing offer.
“Ten?”
“Ten people for whom I already possess solid evidence. And if you give me just a little more time, I can make it twenty!”
“Really?”
Watching the sobbing Baron Horn, Prince Noel slowly curled the corner of his mouth upward.
Just as I thought, the people in this sort of world all have shallow ties.
“Wipe your nose. I will hear you out.”
“Yes! Thank you!”
As he watched Baron Horn blow his nose vigorously, Prince Noel barely managed to suppress a roaring burst of laughter.
Douglas.
You saw that, right?
This is how it is done.