Ian stepped forward to write the response, and Hubert looked grateful for the help with his workload.
However, Jurdan couldn’t help but ask, just in case.
“Young Master Ian. If I may ask, what do you plan to write in the response?”
“I was thinking of writing something like, ‘We regret the kidnapping of the noblewoman, but since you failed to secure your borders and let the filth spill over, what exactly are you complaining about?'”
Upon hearing his answer, Jurdan felt he had asked the right question.
Hubert also let out a deep sigh and shook his head.
Knowing Ian, he would likely write something direct and unfiltered rather than sugarcoating it.
It would be worse than ignoring the letter.
If Count Erce felt insulted, he might immediately declare war, and they would have no defense.
“I’m joking, of course.”
It couldn’t possibly be serious, but Ian did plan to phrase things a bit more diplomatically.
“…Would you allow me to draft the response instead?”
Perhaps because even the joke made him uneasy, Jurdan offered to handle it himself.
“Go ahead.”
Ian readily agreed.
‘Come to think of it, I don’t have the diplomatic finesse to word this properly.’
He trusted Jurdan to craft a suitable response.
“Now, there’s still one more letter left…”
Hubert held another letter, its seal still unbroken.
No one was looking forward to whatever nonsense it might contain.
“Let’s read it together before using it to burn wood.”
Hubert, Ian, and Jurdan gathered closely.
Hubert broke the seal and read the contents.
[To the Schrantz Household.
You are warmly invited to the birthday celebration of the honorable and righteous Lord Leon di Erce of the Erce Household, to be held on the second Wednesday of the final month of this year.
Location: Erce Villa, Gins Village, Erce Territory.]
“……”
“……”
They stared at each other in silence.
The remaining letter was an invitation.
They reread it several times, unable to believe it, but it was indeed an invitation.
“What is this? Did they send us the wrong letter meant for another household?”
Ian asked, but Jurdan shook his head.
“The first paragraph clearly states it’s addressed to us. It’s not a mistake.”
Ian knew that too.
He just couldn’t understand the intention behind sending both a protest and an invitation.
“Do they want to protest or invite us? Or are they trying to pressure us into sending an expensive gift, knowing we won’t attend?”
No one could decipher their intentions.
‘In that case, we’ll have to ask someone who knows Count Erce a bit better.’
Coincidentally, there was exactly one such person nearby.
Jurdan seemed to have the same thought, as he was already looking at Ian.
—
* * *
“Young Master. Did you call for me?”
As soon as her voice was heard, Jurdan’s expression soured.
The person who knew Count Erce better than anyone else was none other than Nea.
“Come in.”
Nea approached them.
She greeted Jurdan as well, but he ignored her.
Although Ian had assured him that Nea was firmly on their side, Jurdan hadn’t yet opened his heart to her.
“I can only ask for your understanding that I haven’t fully accepted you yet.”
Ian felt apologetic, but that was all he could say.
Nea shrugged.
“I don’t mind.”
She had endured far worse insults since childhood, so this was nothing to her.
And she genuinely didn’t seem to care.
Still, Ian couldn’t help feeling uncomfortable about it.
Perhaps sensing his discomfort, Nea added,
“I know it took quite some time for Advisor Jurdan to fully accept you, Young Master. I’ll need to earn that same level of trust.”
She was referring to the time it took for Jurdan to acknowledge that Ian was no longer the reckless troublemaker he once was.
It had taken a long time.
So Nea understood that it would take just as long, if not longer, for her to earn Jurdan’s trust and dispel his doubts.
“Alright, we’ll work on that gradually. I called you here because I wanted to ask you something about Count Erce.”
At the mention of Count Erce, Nea’s eyes lit up.
“Of course. I’ll tell you everything I know.”
Seeing her cooperative attitude, Ian asked,
“Count Erce sent us both a protest letter and an invitation to a banquet. What do you think his intentions are?”
Nea thought for a moment before answering.
“It’s probably nothing serious.”
“Nothing serious? What do you mean?”
“It’s most likely just a childish prank to mess with the Schrantz household. If you accept the invitation, he’ll find a way to humiliate you.”
“Wait, a childish prank?”
Jurdan suddenly stood up from his seat.
“See? Tormenting Schrantz is one of Count Erce’s favourite pastimes. He’s probably hoping I’ll report your reaction to him, Young Master. He gets the most joy out of imagining you flustered and panicking over something he casually threw your way.”
“Just for that reason?!”
“Just for that reason. I’m certain of it. He absolutely loves seeing people dance to his tune so easily.”
Jurdan was furious but eventually calmed down and sat back down.
Deep down, he couldn’t deny that he had occasionally wondered if Count Erce sent those letters just to cause trouble.
He just hadn’t been sure, so he’d dismissed it as mere suspicion.
But it was true that they had often been led around by Count Erce’s whims.
‘All this time, have the lord, Hubert, and I been agonizing over that man’s childish pranks?’
It was deeply unpleasant.
It meant they had been played for fools all along.
“Of course, that’s just the surface-level reason. This time, he probably has a separate agenda.”
“What do you think it is?”
“I think he wants to gauge Schrantz’s financial strength and see how we’ll respond.”
“What do you mean?”
“Because of the development of the unexplored territory and the resources coming from there, Count Erce is probably… no, definitely, extremely jealous. At the same time, he’s curious. How much has Schrantz’s financial situation improved? He might have some idea, but he’ll want to know more precisely. Nobles are expected to send gifts if they can’t attend a birthday celebration, right?”
“So he’s trying to assess our financial situation through the gifts we send. That’s his plan?”
“That’s what I think.”
The idea that a territory once struggling with money would reveal its financial state through gifts was laughable.
And of course, he’d be happy to take whatever they sent.
“And by observing how Schrantz delivers the gifts, he’ll decide how to proceed in the future.”
Jurdan immediately grasped her point.
“You mean he’ll decide whether or not to go to war?”
“Just as Schrantz’s goal is to reclaim its former territory, their goal is to erase Schrantz from the map. They’ll definitely do it when the time comes, even if we don’t know when that will be.”
Jurden’s face turned pale, but Ian remained unfazed.
It was the difference between someone who knew the future where the Earl of Erce would attack Schrantz and someone who didn’t.
‘This is just a ploy to extort money before the Schrantz Raid.’
The choice was either to pay them to delay the war or to proceed with the war as originally planned.
In the end, the future wouldn’t change.
He had no intention of living in false peace.
If there was a way to delay it, that would be fine, but paying to delay it would be a terrible move.
‘The money we give them will become a sword pointed at our own necks.’
It would essentially fund the very war meant to destroy them.
Knowing that such a comedic situation could unfold, Ian had no intention of playing along with their scheme.
“These people are despicable from start to finish.”
As Ian frowned and spoke, Jurdan nodded in agreement.
“Yes, they are. But what can we do? This is our reality.”
The fact that they had to appease these people for now was deeply unsatisfying.
Ian’s blood was boiling.
‘But just wait.’
He would soon turn this reality on its head.
“Oh, I almost forgot to mention.”
At that moment, Nea pulled out a piece of paper she had been carrying.
“I finished the investigation today. I wanted to give this to you.”
The paper she handed over listed the names of families hostile to Schrantz, followed by the names of individuals.
“What’s this?”
It looked like some kind of list, but Ian didn’t understand why she was giving it to him.
“It’s a list of spies from hostile forces who have infiltrated Schrantz.”
Both Ian and Jurdan’s eyes widened.
“You found that out?”
“Yes, I looked into it myself.”
“By yourself?”
“Yes, by myself.”
It wasn’t something Ian had asked her to do.
When she handed over such high-level information, Ian looked at her in surprise.
“I have to earn my keep.”
Now that she no longer needed to cooperate with the Earl of Erce, she had truly committed to helping Ian.
Her skills were indeed exceptional from the start.
She had accomplished in just a few days what would normally require an immense amount of effort from the entire territory.
‘Her cost-performance is insane.’
She truly lived up to her potential as a future underworld figure.
Ian carefully examined the list she had handed over.
There were three spies who had infiltrated Schrantz.
Including the locals they had bribed, the total was around ten.
The enemy spies were scattered across Dobina Village, Rosen, and the pioneer village.
“Is this really accurate?”
Jurdan asked Nea with a mix of surprise and suspicion.
“You’re free to verify whether it’s true or not. But it would be best to act quickly and capture them before they catch on.”
She answered with a confident expression.
“Young Master, if this is true, we need to eliminate them all before their intelligence network grows stronger.”
They would soon start reporting all of Schrantz’s movements.
‘It would be great if we had a secret unit operating in the shadows.’
But of course, Schrantz had no such unit.
“Then I’ll take my leave now.”
Having finished her task and knowing the rest was beyond her scope, Nea bowed to Ian and left.
Jurdan stared at the door for a while after she left.
“She’s a truly terrifying woman, despite her appearance.”
He commented.
Ian nodded in agreement.
She had taken it upon herself to do what needed to be done and even offered advice.
Her recent display of skill had earned even Jurdan’s respect, at least in terms of ability.
Of course, he would still verify the accuracy of the information she provided.
“I’ll have this information investigated separately to confirm its reliability.”
“Do that.”
While Ian trusted that the information was genuine, Jurdan was still skeptical of her.
‘And there might be innocent people caught up in this.’
Regardless, Ian had no intention of turning down such a gift.
‘Then I’ll need to recruit someone to handle the dirty work.’
Dirty work.
It wasn’t hard to think of who in the territory could handle such tasks.
It was Den’s bandit group, who were now spending their days productively in the pioneer village.
‘I’ll need to use them for a long time, so I can’t just discard them like last time.’
Since the deputy leader and his ‘trusted’ men had died last time, there were likely no longer any remnants of Den’s bandit group who were fiercely loyal to him.
Ian planned to formally hire them and put them to use.
Schrantz now needed people who could quietly handle tasks behind the scenes.
