Published: August 25, 2025
Today, four chapters are posted simultaneously.
This story is the third chapter.
“And regarding the future... Since there’s the secret of being the child of god, I’m thinking of dispatching another subordinate from the duke’s household to assist Ryoma-kun.”
“Separate from Mr. Eudam?”
That itself wasn’t a problem, but there was already someone assisting as an engineer. Also, to keep the secret, wouldn’t it be better to have fewer people who know about it? But it seemed there was no need to reveal the fact that he was the child of god.
“Position-wise, she’ll be the same as him, assisting as an engineer, but her role will mainly be Ryoma-kun’s ‘secretary.’ I’m thinking she’ll handle communications with us and other related parties, as well as negotiations with outside parties. Mr. Eudam is not bad, but I think it’s better to have someone who can focus solely on information transmission and negotiation.
The reason is that Ryoma-kun’s name got quite well known due to the incident at the end of last year, so as he builds achievements as an engineer, there’s a possibility other nobles might try to make contact.”
“Even though he’s already an engineer for the duke’s household?”
“They probably won’t try to recruit him, but it might be requests like ‘We’re in trouble; we want your help.’ Normally, such requests go through the noble backing the person, but there are plenty of people who bypass the system… Those nobles are definitely troublesome.
Engineers who have shops or workshops in the city have easy-to-find bases, so the chance of contact is higher. When such people come asking to ‘send Ryoma-kun,’ you don’t want to deal with that every single time, right?”
That’s definitely something to avoid.
“As a noble and as an individual, I can’t welcome such things. Also, what was his name—Calm? He’s an excellent merchant but just a regular commoner. It’s smoother to have nobles deal with nobles, and it also acts as a deterrent to prevent any mishaps.”
An eye for an eye, or better to leave things to the experts? Either way, it made sense, and since it was a rare offer, I wanted to accept it. But then the question was whether I could get along well with that person.
“Could that person be the maid from earlier?”
“Oh, you figured that out quickly.”
“At first, I thought they brought in a stranger just to check the curse. But after hearing what you said, I don’t think they’d bring someone random and increase unnecessary contact.”
“That’s right. I did want to confirm the curse’s effects, but if there are no problems, I planned to take time later to introduce her. Her name is Eleonora Lansole; does that name ring a bell?”
Speaking of the name... If I recall, during the chaos at the end of last year, the noble owning the gold mine that was the enemy’s funding source was Baron Lansole. Upon checking, it was confirmed that she was the eldest daughter of that family.
“Is it alright? I don’t think you’d introduce someone unreliable.”
“That’s a fair question. Let me explain.”
So, I heard the story from madam. Here’s the summary:
First, Eleonora’s family, the Baron Lansole’s household, was under the control of other nobles, who were extracting profits from the gold mine. The current head—her father—and her siblings tried to run operations as properly as possible even under those circumstances; they were good nobles. That’s why the four families controlling them disliked them.
To break the rebellious spirit of her parents and siblings, she was pressured to marry into the Baron Rufred’s household, one of the four families. That was just the official story; in reality, she was treated coldly as a hostage to her family.
On the very first day, she was forced into a separate building on the estate, and her husband’s son—the baron’s heir—was living a life of debauchery with his mistress. Usually, a noblewoman who marries into a family runs the household, but she was not allowed to do any such thing and was instead burdened with chores.