"Damn it!"
The curse echoed through the room, followed an instant later by the sharp crack of shattering glass.
But the man who had shouted—Gaiska—found no relief whatsoever from the outburst. That was because the situation he currently found himself in was truly that dire.
The money Gaiska had prepared to hire Black Wolf.
He had scraped together funds from every source he could think of, and when that still wasn't enough, he had put up the Seisole estate in Anesis as collateral to secure the remainder...
"Why? Why does my father know about this? Did someone betray me? No, there aren't that many people who know about this to begin with, and it's impossible for Deotres to betray me!"
His shouts reverberated through the room.
Yes—borrowing money against the estate without permission was something Gaiska absolutely had to keep hidden, yet somehow his father had found out.
How his father had learned of it remained unclear, but naturally, once he knew what Gaiska had done, he couldn't simply let it slide.
This estate, after all, had been established in Anesis, a city ruled by the figure who led the Noble's Faction. If it were to carelessly fall into outside hands, the Marquis Seisole's House's reputation would be dragged through the mud.
Knowing this full well, Gaiska had kept the matter hidden... yet all that awaited him in the end was house arrest.
And it was house arrest only because of the current timing. Once the party—which most of the Noble Faction Nobles were attending—ended, the head of the Marquis Seisole's House would certainly punish Gaiska.
Whether that punishment meant continued confinement, expulsion from the Seisole family, or, worst case, death.
Gaiska didn't know what would happen, but no matter how things turned out, he couldn't imagine a favorable outcome.
"What do I do? What should I do...?"
Normally, Deotres would offer advice whenever Gaiska was at a loss, but Deotres wasn't here right now.
Which meant he had to make every decision himself.
"Damn it, what should I do...? This is all Rei's fault to begin with. If that bastard Rei had shown even a shred of respect for nobles, none of this would have happened. Son of a bitch... damn it!"
He tried to hurl another glass, but since he had already thrown the one he'd had and no one had cleaned up the mess or brought him a replacement, there was nothing left to throw.
If a servant had been present, he could have at least taken his frustrations out on them... but naturally, no one was foolish enough to approach Gaiska now.
They knew his temperament all too well, and no one would risk getting close so easily.
Moreover, with Gaiska's father now present, Gaiska was no longer the most powerful person in this estate.
When his father was around—though he wasn't in the estate at the moment, having gone to attend the party—any of the usual beatings and kicks Gaiska inflicted on the servants would have dire consequences.
"What do I do... what should I do..."
Gaiska muttered the same kind of desperate words Count Ceresse had uttered after attacking Set, but just like Count Ceresse, no help would come. What arrived instead was...
A knock at the door. Gaiska turned toward it, momentarily bewildered.
He couldn't imagine who would come to visit him while he was under house arrest, and for an instant he even wondered if the sound had been his imagination.
But after a few seconds, the knocking came again.
It was unmistakably a knock this time—definitely not his imagination.
Who would possibly come to see him in this situation?
He puzzled over it, but ultimately decided things couldn't get any worse than they already were, and rose to his feet.
His legs wobbled briefly. He told himself it was just the drink as he made his way to the door.
When he opened it, the face on the other side left him dumbfounded.
"Why is someone like you here?" he managed.
"Hehe, don't be like that. I heard Lord Gaiska was in a terrible spot, so I came rushing over."
The grinning man was the mediator Gaiska had contacted to arrange the contract with Black Wolf.
Even looking at that smile, Gaiska honestly had no idea why the man was here, and he kept his guard up.
And no wonder. The mediator had only cooperated with Gaiska because of the payment for Black Wolf.
A portion had been paid upfront, but producing the success fee after Black Wolf killed Rei would be extraordinarily difficult.
If the man had come to see someone in his position, it almost certainly concerned the breach of contract.
Under normal circumstances, Gaiska would have dismissed a contract dispute with a man like this as beneath his notice, but in his current state, he couldn't afford to.
Gaiska had trained his body to a certain degree, but it was only a certain degree.
The mediator, coming from the underworld, was undoubtedly no stranger to violence.
If the man before him attacked, Gaiska would be helpless.
Normally, Deotres would be at his side at a time like this... but Deotres wasn't here either.
Gaiska would never have admitted it himself, but the reason he instinctively took several steps backward was simple fear of the mediator.
Seeing this, the mediator shot Gaiska a look of contempt, careful to keep it from showing on his face.
Watching the man who had constantly looked down on him now trying to suppress his terror struck even the mediator as absurd.
"You came here for me? My father is effectively in control of this estate right now. You've got nerve getting in here."
"Well, things being what they are, I've got connections and methods of my own."
Under normal circumstances, such a statement would have been impossible to overlook.
After all, the man had actually shown his face in Gaiska's room—a room deep within the estate.
Reasoned through normally, the odds of being assassinated if anything went wrong were extremely high.
But whether Gaiska failed to notice this or simply didn't grasp the danger, he didn't seem particularly concerned.
"I see. So what do you want? You've come here, so you must understand the situation I'm in."
"Indeed. The matter with us was discovered by your father, and now you're under house arrest... but is that really acceptable?"
"What?"
Gaiska frowned in puzzlement at the mediator's words.
He didn't understand what the man was getting at. He didn't understand, but... he sensed something ominous nonetheless.
"Lord Gaiska, you may have been slightly rash. But you took that action because you believed it would serve the interests of the Marquis Seisole's House, didn't you? If so, it should be praised, not punished—let alone being scolded in front of the servants and placed under house arrest. Under normal circumstances, you'd be commended. Told you'd done well."
"That's..."
By any reasonable standard, what the mediator was saying was preposterous.
Putting up an estate—especially one in a city as important as Anesis—as collateral to borrow money was simply inexcusable.
But to the cornered Gaiska, the mediator's words were sweet poison.
Even knowing what they were, they dangled before him like a forbidden fruit he couldn't help but reach for.
"That's right. You're exactly right. I acted for the sake of the Marquis Seisole's House. My father should have acknowledged that."
He declared it with finality.
What Gaiska had done was something that, at worst—if it ever came to light—would drag the Seisole name through the mud.
Yet he seized on the mediator's words without hesitation, clinging to the excuse that he had done nothing wrong.
(Hehe, easy as that. Even a fool like this carries the bloodline of a marquis house. Plenty of uses for him. When the boss told me to keep him under house arrest, I wasn't sure what to do... but this is working out nicely.)
The mediator hadn't come to see Gaiska on his own initiative—naturally.
He too belonged to an underworld organization.
That much was a given, considering his ties to Black Wolf.
His superior in that organization had ordered him to visit Gaiska, persuade him by whatever means necessary, and bring him back.
At first, knowing Gaiska's personality, he'd been certain that persuading him would be impossible... but once he actually sat down and talked to the man, the persuasion had gone far more smoothly than expected.
Honestly, he'd been almost disappointed by how easy it was.
At any rate, the mediator had successfully made contact with Gaiska and successfully won him over.
All that remained was to bring Gaiska to the location his superior had specified...
"Lord Gaiska, how many people are left in this estate? I'd like you to lay low for a while."
"Lay low? Leave the estate?"
"Yes. We need to make your father understand how much you've sacrificed for the Marquis Seisole's House. But if you're standing right in front of him, the Marquis Seisole won't be able to honestly admit his own mistake, no matter what."
Gaiska briefly felt a flicker of doubt.
But before he could think it through, the mediator spoke again.
"Come now, let's leave here as quickly as possible. Once we do, the Marquis Seisole will come to understand what a tremendous thing Lord Gaiska has accomplished. Whatever we do, we first need to bring him back to his senses."
"Is that so... I see."
Gaiska began to doubt again, but ultimately chose to believe what was convenient for him.
This was because deep down, he desperately wanted to believe his own actions had been justified—and that desire made him all too easy to sweep along.
"Yes, of course. So, returning to my earlier question—do you know how many people remain in the estate? I'm fairly confident in my abilities, but if there are too many... though I suppose Black Wolf wouldn't have any trouble with that sort of thing."
"I need Black Wolf to kill Rei to prove my actions were justified. I can't bother him with something this trivial. As for the number of people—since my father is here, there are more than usual. Though the capable ones are likely at the party serving as his escorts."
"Hmm. Plenty of bodies, but no one who can fight, eh? In that case, I can manage somehow..."
Gaiska felt something faintly sinister in the mediator's muttered words.
Was this man planning to kill those remaining in the estate?
It was a strange thought, coming from a man who routinely beat his servants and didn't stop his kicks even after they lost consciousness. Yet there it was.
Not that he was worried about their lives, per se—rather, he judged it would be extremely troublesome if his father's subordinates ended up dead.
"Are you going to kill them?"
"Eh? Ah, no. 'Course not. If it might make things worse for Lord Gaiska, I wouldn't dream of it."
"...I see."
Gaiska didn't seem to notice it himself, but relief washed over his face.
The mediator wore a servile smile, but inwardly his irritation flared at the complications.
He'd thought this would be a simple job, never imagining it would turn troublesome over something like this.
Still, he had to make the best of the current situation. He began working out a plan to slip out of the Seisole estate without encountering the servants—and without running into any Guards or Knights.