Chapter 189
The three of them turned their gazes.
Sillian approached quietly, suppressing the sound of his footsteps, then carefully opened the door.
“Haah…”
Seeing the two people entering, Lynette let out a small sigh of relief. Fortunately, the ones who had come in were Euphen and Eshar.
“So you were already here.”
Euphen looked at her and smiled faintly. Then he glanced briefly at Julia. With the appearance of unfamiliar people, she seemed slightly tense, her shoulders subtly drawn in.
“It’s alright, Julia.”
Lynette lightly held the woman’s hand. The two of them came closer and briefly stated their names. It seemed that simply knowing they were companions made her relax a little, but when Lynette saw that her eyes still held a trace of fear, she whispered quietly that they were Espers.
That seemed to reassure her more than exchanging formal introductions.
Julia let out a long sigh and lowered her head deeply.
“We retrieved the seal safely.”
Lynette informed the two, who were lightly brushing dust from their clothes, about the current situation.
“The problem is that Nosh has probably noticed by now. He must have realized Julia is gone, and he’ll know the seal was stolen as well.”
After hesitating for a moment, Lynette added,
“By now they’re probably looking for me outside.”
As she said that, she turned her gaze toward Sillian. As if it weren’t enough that he was already being pursued, now she had ended up becoming someone being chased as well.
“Where is the seal now?”
At Eshar’s question, Lynette immediately took the seal out from her clothes and handed it over. Eshar took out paper, ink, a pen, and sealing wax from the bag she was carrying and spread them out on the table. She leaned on the candlelight and was about to start writing, but then briefly turned her gaze to Julia.
“It would be better if Julia wrote this rather than me.”
“M-me?”
The woman trembled slightly at the pen suddenly held out to her. She looked frightened.
Before, after sending a letter, everything had been taken from her. That might have made her afraid. Eshar seemed to have noticed that as well. Instead of urging her, she spoke calmly.
“Don’t you want to take it back?”
“…”
At those words, Julia’s hand trembled slightly. Thanks to Lynette’s continued persuasion, she seemed firmly determined to reclaim what was hers, but it also seemed that some fear still remained about what might happen if something went wrong.
“This is the last chance.”
After speaking firmly, Eshar watched her quietly for a moment before turning her gaze to Euphen.
“Euphen. How did the thing you went to do turn out?”
“It went well. Better than expected.”
He answered quietly with a faint smile. Unlike Lynette, who had gently comforted her, Eshar spoke firmly and coldly. As Julia listened to her, Lynette noticed that she slowly took hold of the pen.
“Can you tell me what happened?”
When Lynette asked in a whisper and moved a little closer to Euphen, she felt Sillian’s gaze. He didn’t stop her, but she sensed a warning to be careful about getting too close, so she stepped back slightly.
Euphen glanced at the man standing a little distance away and at Julia, who was writing the letter, then lowered his voice and explained the situation.
“We cut off Nosh’s source of funds.”
After saying it simply, the man slowly added more details.
On the surface, Nosh was a moneylender, but in reality he had been earning a great deal of money through illegal trade. It seemed he had been secretly importing goods without the Imperial Family’s knowledge, such as d***s banned for sale in the Empire or items that were supposed to be formally imported through contracts with other countries, and inflating his wealth through them.
‘That means there must be someone in that country smuggling the goods out.’
It seemed Eshar and Euphen had found the warehouse where the goods were hidden. They had destroyed most of them and left some behind, sending them toward the Imperial Castle. They had even packed them poorly on purpose so that they would inevitably be discovered.
“Even if a member of the Imperial Family who joined hands with Nosh tries to interfere, someone along the way will inevitably discover it.”
“What if it passes without any trouble?”
Hadn’t he committed illegal acts all this time without any consequences? Eshar and Euphen must have handled things well, but she still had to consider what they would do if it didn’t work. At her question, he frowned slightly then smiled.
“Even if that happens, at the very least they’ll realize one of their sources of funding has dried up.”
Seeing him shrug lightly, Lynette nodded.
“It would be best if they’re interrogated about the smuggling and illegal d***s. But even just losing Nosh will deal them quite a blow. The scale of it was pretty large.”
“Did you only deal with the smuggling?”
“No.”
The man gave a short laugh.
While the two of them were talking, Julia slowly continued writing the letter. Perhaps because she hadn’t written for a long time, her handwriting was a little crooked. Her movements were awkward, but as she listened to Eshar’s advice and carefully wrote the contents step by step, her expression was serious.
“We should also return the property that Nosh forcibly took from people.”
It was a typical method. When people became even slightly desperate, he would lend money at absurdly high interest rates. Then he would seize their property afterward.
“Even if they tried to endure it, he used his subordinates to force them into difficult situations.”
If someone ran a shop, his subordinates would cause trouble there and interfere with the business. Once they began paying money under the name of ‘protection fees’, things could only grow more difficult. They had never paid such money before, so unless the business was doing extremely well, there was no way they could suddenly start paying protection fees and still manage to survive.
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