Chapter 89
Past Grievances
“Stephan.”
There was emotion in Merchant’s voice, but only for a moment.
“I understand that you’re in a difficult situation. Once you’ve calmed down, apologize for treating your brother like a murderer.”
He spoke as though gently reasoning with him, but to Stephan, it felt no different from being treated like a child.
“Don’t make me laugh. Are you saying that I’m… that I’ve been barking up the wrong tree?”
“Do you honestly believe your brother did it?”
“I already have evidence. Look at this!”
Stephan pulled out the scarf he had been holding.
Even Merchant could clearly see the emblem of the Pascal Mercenary Company.
“I already know how you operate! That filthy method of creating demand by manufacturing necessity! This happened right after I announced that I would monopolize the trade route.”
“You believe the bullshit those merchants are spouting?”
“It wasn’t just one person. Everyone who once signed a contract with you says the same thing. How could I not suspect you?!”
Merchant fell silent and considered his words.
“Fine. Perhaps I was responsible for what happened to those people.”
His tone seemed to imply an easy admission, but then he tilted his head.
“But where is the proof that I interfered in your business?”
“Isn’t it right here?”
“You mean this impressive little scarf? Anyone could make one of these.”
He fluttered the scarf in the air before tossing it onto the table.
“There are ten thousand mercenaries registered with our company, and we have more than two thousand scarves in storage. Anyone could have stolen one and staged the scene to make it look like our mercenaries were responsible. You’re supposed to be smarter than me, yet you couldn’t even consider that?”
“Will you still be able to say that in an imperial court?!”
“You want to take this to court? You’re planning to start a war of mutual destruction? Damn, you really are furious. Dragging your own family into court…”
“Stop talking about family! You only bring up family when you’re the one in trouble. Whenever there’s something to gain, we’re complete strangers!”
“You think I was trying to keep all the profits for myself? Hey, Stephan. I helped you plenty when you were struggling. I gave you special treatment and did everything I could for you, so what the fuck is your problem?”
“Haven’t I been telling you this entire time? The problem is that those bandits you command murdered my employees!”
“You bastard. You’re really going to keep calling my employees third-rate trash—”
“Merchant Pascal.”
Merchant, the veins in his neck bulging, had been about to rise from his seat.
But when Ferda called his name, he remembered that Ferda had been watching and bowed his head.
“My apologies, Regent. I have shown you an unpleasant side of a private family matter.”
“That does not concern me. Forgive me, but could you put this discussion aside and leave for now? I have something to discuss with Stephan.”
“Of course. This humble servant shall withdraw for the moment.”
Merchant obediently bowed and left.
The moment he was gone, Stephan pointed furiously at the place where he had been sitting.
“There’s nothing more to investigate. He did it.”
His face had turned bright red.
“Stephan.”
“We must arrest him immediately and interrogate him. We should ask whether he feels satisfied after murdering thirty-three people.”
“I had intended to do that. But after seeing you, I realized I could not.”
“After seeing me? What is wrong with me?”
Ferda looked him over with cold, discerning eyes.
“You look no different from a vengeful ghost thirsting for blood.”
“Vengeance? Isn’t that why we’re doing this?”
“The problem is that the vengeance you seek does not belong solely to the present. You are dragging old grudges from your past into this.”
“I…”
Stephan wanted to deny it, but Ferda’s words helped him regain a little composure.
“I suppose you’re right. To be honest, my brother tormented me quite a lot when we were young.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Whenever I came home after being beaten by someone, he said he hated my lack of backbone. Then he would grab a wooden sword, claim he was training me, and beat me half to death.”
Ferda could understand that feeling, at least to some extent.
After his mother died, Ferda had been treated like an illegitimate child and subjected to such cruelty countless times.
“And I… No. Never mind. Let’s stop talking about this.”
“No. Do not stop.”
Ferda prevented him from cutting off his lament.
“Let out every last bit of anger you harbor toward Merchant.”
“What? Why would I do that?”
“Because it will help.”
“I don’t think it will help very much…”
“Then I shall make it an order. Curse him. Shout out everything he did to you.”
Stephan was bewildered by Ferda’s demand.
But since he had no choice but to obey, he forced himself to speak the name.
“Merchant… you… you… son of a…”
It was a hesitant, stifled beginning, but that did not matter.
“You…”
Like water bursting through a punctured dam, his emotions quickly became violent.
“You filthy bastard!”
Stephan’s eyes rolled with fury as he began screaming at the top of his lungs.
“Damn that accursed bastard! You were practically holding rituals praying for my ruin, and now you pull something like this?! Did you think I was that easy to push around?! Huh?!”
“…”
“I’ll make you suffer the same way! Just as you shattered my bones when we were children, I’ll smash every bone in your body!”
He continued rampaging, screaming out every resentment that had accumulated throughout his past.
After about ten minutes, Stephan could no longer produce a proper voice.
“Kheugh! Cough!”
“Have a drink.”
“Cough, cough… Thank you…”
Stephan sat down and drank the tea.
He slumped in his chair as though every ounce of strength had left his body.
“Do you feel a little better?”
“Yes, Regent… Thanks to you, I believe I’ve avoided dying from pent-up rage.”
“Then your vision should be somewhat clearer now. Let us resume our discussion.”
Stephan straightened his posture once more, and Ferda addressed him.
“To begin with the conclusion, this does not feel like Merchant Pascal’s work.”
“…What?”
Had Ferda not been speaking earlier as though Merchant were the obvious culprit, even producing the mercenary company’s scarf as evidence?
And now he was saying that Merchant had not done it?
“Then why did you tell me to curse my brother?”
“So that you would not remain trapped by those grudges. You kept holding on to things that could cloud your judgment, did you not?”
Ferda’s explanation seemed absurd, yet Stephan could not deny that he was right.
Had he ever screamed and cursed like that before?
As a child, he had often been forced to bite down on a gag. As an adult, the most he could do was hide away with a bottle stashed in the corner of his desk and sob into his drink.
Now, however, he had finally shouted everything out.
“You said entering into a contract with the Pascal Mercenary Company was no different from making a deal with the devil, correct?”
“Yes.”
“You already knew that from the beginning, did you not?”
“I did.”
“Then Merchant Pascal, your brother, should have been the first person you suspected. And yet you never once voiced that suspicion to me.”
Ferda asked calmly,
“Why did you not?”
“At the time, I was overwhelmed, and…”
“Is that the only reason? You simply did not think of it?”
Stephan shook his head.
That could not have been the only reason.
He thought about why Merchant had not been the first person to come to mind when the attack occurred.
‘Merchant Pascal.’
His family—and his enemy.
Ever since childhood, Merchant had been unable to contain his overflowing aggression. He had turned that nature to his advantage and become a mercenary commander.
He possessed charisma and leadership.
And possessing leadership meant understanding the burden carried by those in positions of responsibility—something ordinary thugs did not.
Stephan analyzed everything about him as a merchant would evaluate another executive, relying only on objective facts.
The answer became astonishingly clear.
“…The likelihood was low.”
“Why?”
“The idea that my brother retaliates against anyone who refuses to sign a contract with him is… honestly, little more than superstition. Most of those people brought disaster upon themselves. They hired cheap mercenaries, entered dangerous regions, and suffered the consequences. They bought something worthless and then blamed innocent people for it.”
People saw only what they wanted to see and believed only what they wanted to believe.
Overcome by emotion, Stephan had overlooked even something so basic.
“So my current opinion is that… a single scarf cannot make that suspicion conclusive.”
Even after reaching the conclusion himself, Stephan could hardly believe it.
Only minutes ago, he had been certain that Merchant was responsible and had imagined taking merciless revenge.
He had judged the situation through emotion rather than reason, and those emotions had blinded him.
Had Ferda not helped him cast them aside, Stephan would have ended up fighting Merchant.
As Stephan swallowed his emptiness, Ferda listened to his answer and turned to Luri.
“Bring Merchant Pascal back inside.”
Merchant, who had been waiting outside, returned and took his seat.
The three once again faced one another.
Unlike before, when the atmosphere had seemed ready to explode from rage, a calm silence now settled over the room.
“Merchant Pascal. I have finished speaking with Stephan, but I want you to answer one final question clearly.”
“Please ask, Regent.”
“Can you swear that you had no involvement in the attack on Stephan?”
Ferda asked with such icy severity that even he felt a chill.
Merchant raised his index finger.
“I have one principle. Just as my family is precious to me, other people’s families are precious to them. My employees and I take up swords and accept payment to protect others. If we were paid simply to wield those swords against people, would that not make us nothing more than third-rate thugs and bandits?”
“I see. Thank you.”
After hearing his answer, Ferda gestured with his chin toward the scarf lying on the table.
“If this scarf has nothing to do with the mercenary company’s involvement, then someone must have been trying to drive a wedge between the two of you.”
“Between my brother and me?”
Merchant’s eyes widened.
The expression on his face made it clear that his anger was genuine.
“Who the hell dared to lay a hand on my family?”
“I think I know who it was.”
The now-calm Stephan answered.
“Who?”
“My sister, Tilda.”
The name that left his mouth belonged to yet another member of their family.
“On the surface, she pretends to be satisfied with the Dandolo Trading Company, but no one wants the Pascal Company more than she does. She has been persistently obstructing us from the shadows for a long time. And she is the only person who stands to benefit from turning my brother and me against each other.”
“Yes. That woman is certainly capable of something like this.”
Merchant, despite his intense attachment to family, immediately agreed when his sister was mentioned.
It was strange.
“Is Tilda Pascal not also your family?”
“Do not even mention it. That woman cannot be called family.”
Merchant was furious, but he suppressed his temper and answered calmly.
“Do you know what she tried to do when my wife was pregnant with our first child? She sent poison to my wife under the guise of congratulating her on the pregnancy. Fortunately, I ate it without knowing what it was and suffered the consequences myself. Had my wife consumed it, she would certainly have miscarried. She had always been an irritating little sister without a single endearing quality, but that was when she truly crossed the line.”
Stephan was the one startled by his words.
“That happened five years ago?”
“I was not completely certain, so I never told anyone. Making a scene would only have pleased her.”
Stephan had always believed Merchant was the type to turn everything upside down and rage about killing someone over such an incident.
He had now witnessed a surprising side of him.
“In any case, she has always possessed more ambition than ability. Since she lacks the skill to build anything herself, she seduced Henri Dandolo, an aging bachelor, took control of the Dandolo Trading Company, and is now trying to seize Father’s company as well.”
Merchant clenched his pot-lid-sized fist.
The veins on his arm bulged ominously.
“So what will you do, Regent?”
Merchant asked.
“We can overturn her entire operation and drag her here immediately.”
“Would that not further damage the mercenary company’s reputation?”
“You need not worry. If it means throwing that witch onto a burning stake, I do not care if I become a demon myself. If she has laid hands on my family, then she must pay the proper price.”
His fury burned fiercely.
Having spent his life rolling across brutal battlefields, Merchant knew how to use anger as fuel.
“We must not harm her directly.”
The one who said it was Stephan.
“What? Stephan, are you an idiot?”
“Think about it. Resorting to violence would be unwise. The fact that she has begun something this vicious means her plan is already in motion. In the worst-case scenario, the entire Pascal family could collapse.”
“Well…”
Because both brothers knew what kind of person Tilda was, Stephan did not need to say much to persuade him.
“She is persistent when it comes to malice. Until we obtain proof that this was truly Tilda’s doing, we must not touch her carelessly.”
“Then what do you suggest?”
Stephan forcibly calmed his pounding heart before answering.
“For now, we leave while pretending that this misunderstanding remains unresolved. We give her exactly what she wants. Then she will surely continue with her plan as scheduled.”
“You mean we use that to catch her by the tail.”
Merchant slapped his knee.
“Good. I agree. Let us draw that woman out properly.”
“Understood.”
The two brothers, who had nearly become bitter enemies, united before a common foe.