CH 151

Warning: Depictions of PTSD, Child Abuse, Abuse of Power, and Physical Abuse.

“You idiot!” Duke Alto von Bayen roared.

“Hii…” Helene squealed and cowered.

The day after her evening party, Helene gleefully came to Alto’s room and said, “Guess what happened to House Reingen’s daughter?”, told him the story, and suddenly her father was yelling at her. Helene didn’t know what was wrong.

Helene thought that it was only natural for Christiane to receive a suitable reward because she had acted so foolishly on her own. But Alto thinks differently.

“Why did you do such a thing?!” Alto yelled.

“Well, umm…” Helene said, “because she shoved me to the sidelines with that performance and the sweets, and she wore a dress that stood out more than I, the hostess…”

At that, Alto puts a hand to his forehead and shakes his head. He’d thought Helene was a little smarter than that, but it seems that he was overestimating her as her father.

“How much money do you think the daughter of House Reingen could bring us?!” Alto snapped.

“Huh?” Helene asked.

She had thought that Alto was angry about her having beaten and banished Christiane, but now the question marks were floating over her head.

“Listen well, alright?” Alto said. “The crepes and puddings which were served that evening would sell! The crepes have already hit the market, but pudding has yet to join them. House Bayen has the right to take advantage of them! What did you think you were doing, tossing aside House Reingen’s daughter without even asking about the recipe!?”

“Ah……” Helene gasped.

And at that, she came up with an idea. The person who first develops or invents a product or service and puts it to market is entitled to the rights of that product or service. Although society is still unfamiliar with the concepts of patents, copyrights, and intellectual property rights, such rights to ownership and use still do exist.

However, in reality, there is almost no effectiveness; if, for example, someone steals the recipe and sells the crepes sold at crepe cafes, it will be difficult to stop them. But when it comes to nobles, the story is different.

Nobles can sue the country if a company steals and imitates the goods and services that their Houses had the right to use exclusively. Even if the company were to receive an injunction to stop the sales and use, there would be no benefit to the nobles. Aside from the nobles who have businesses in their names, ordinary nobles can’t even manufacture products and services themselves if they don’t have the support of an entire sales network with manufacturing, logistics, and distribution.

Then what do you do then? The answer is simple: you can solve the problem by having the companies pay so-called patent fees and licensing fees to the nobles, as they have rights over the service or the product. Then the nobles will get money just by developing new products. As a company, you can officially sell products developed by other people.

However, this system has serious flaws. In many cases, falsehoods are included when aristocrats claim rights to inventions.

In fact, they often stole others’ rights and demanded the business and people that invented them pay the nobles their “dues.”

Even in the modern world, there are various problems related to patents, copyrights, intellectual property, etc., but there is no way that they have been solved in this kind of society. It’s not like you can criticize a product that has absolutely no logical connection to you, but if the conditions are right, it’s possible to steal the rights for your own. And this time, they were.

In front of a large number of high-ranking aristocrats, a new product that hadn’t been sold anywhere yet was unveiled at an evening party hosted by Duke Bayen. In other words, if someone tried to sell that pudding from now on, House Bayen would be able to insist they owned the product and demand money from anyone who tried.

However, in order to do that, they first need to report the pudding manufacturing to the kingdom and register themselves as the inventors. Of course, if you are a high-ranking noble, there are many ways to bribe or threaten officials without going through such formal procedures, but if you can register in the proper manner, it is quicker and more reliable.

If they had House Reingen’s daughter spit out the recipe for pudding and registered it in the name of House Bayen, they would have been able to receive money without having to do anything, it would just flow in while they slept.

That pudding will definitely sell. Judging from the reaction and reputation at the evening party, there is no doubt about it. It’s natural for Alto to get angry at Helene for chasing away the goose that laid the golden eggs.

Then there’s that gigantic collection of Hexen White Porcelain. Alto does not know how the daughter of the House Reingen even managed to gather so many pieces of it at once.

Even Duke Bayen owns Hexen White Porcelain. But it’s reserved for when you’re entertaining guests of a higher rank than Alto himself. There’s no way it could be used on a regular basis, let alone at an evening party where there’s a high chance of it breaking or chipping by accident. He can’t hide his surprise that they readied so many of them.

“And if I may add?” Alto said. “That Hexen White Porcelain was served at our family’s evening party. I’m sure all the nobles who attended will attest that it was all owned by us.”

“That’s…!” Helene gasped.

Yes. They don’t know who the pieces belong to. Even if the name was written on them, many nobles saw them being served at an evening party by Duke Bayen. Naturally, no one would be able to refute the claim that Duke Bayen owned all of them.

“Do you understand now?” Alto said. “All those pieces of Hexen White Porcelain belonged to the Bayen Duchy, and as soon as the evening party ended, the company that House Reingen’s daughter brought in took them away without permission. We have to interrogate that company as well. We must tempt them to cooperate with us by offering them a way back into our faction, we’re going to trick Reingen’s daughter to give us the recipe, and find the thieving merchant that stole our tableware. Do I make myself clear?”

“Ye-Yes!” Helene cried. “I’ll get to it immediately…”

And now aware of how priceless Christiane’s utility had become, she rushed to prepare this scheme.

After summoning Sophie and the others, Helene headed for Marquis Reingen’s mansion. As the carriage sways and rocks, she feels melancholy.

She never thought that she, Daughter of Duke Bayen, would deign to visit the residence of a marquis. It’s nothing but humiliation to have banished someone yesterday and now visit their home personally today.

Originally, in a position as high as Helene’s, it should be normal to call the lower party and have them come visit you. And yet, why does Helene have to personally visit Marquis Reingen’s home? She had been irritated thinking about it for a while and was depressed because her father had gotten angry with her.

While she was thinking that, they soon arrived at House Reingen’s mansion, and when she was let into the reception room, she was greeted by the Head of House Reingen, Marquis Karl von Reingen, and his wife, Marianne von Reingen.

“How is Christiane?” Helene asked, irreverently interrupting Karl’s greetings.

No matter how much she is a duke’s daughter, Karl has a higher status than Helene as the adult with the title of Marquis. Despite of this, Karl simply bowed his head and continues to humor and flatter Helene despite her mistreatment.

“My daughter is recuperating for a while…” Karl said.

Both Karl and Marianne obviously know what happened to Christiane last night. Since it had been so long since she left for the evening party she was invited to, they were worried that their daughter had not returned, so they sent the House Servants to look for her. And they didn’t even need to leave the premises to find her.

Why was Christiane’s dress torn to pieces, her body beaten and bruised all over, then left curled up in front of the gate? Obviously, both Karl and Marianne knew the culprit.

Christiane wore a beautiful costume that was incomparable to the organizer, Helene, and stood out as she did in the middle of the evening party. If you do that, they know what Helene will do.

They tore her dress, assaulted her and left her so bruised and wounded, and then tossed her like garbage outside the gate and abandoned her…. but even so, Karl and Marianne can only try to get back on Helene’s good side.

For Christiane to be treated like that means that House Reingen has been expelled from Duke Bayen’s Faction. Without their help, House Reingen would not be able to survive on its own. Therefore, even if they had to sacrifice their daughter, and even if they had to forsake their pride and rub their heads on the ground while begging for forgiveness from a young lady, there was no other way to survive than to flatter Helene and be allowed back into the faction.

“I see…” Helene said. “I have business with Christiane. Please guide me to her room.”

“Understood,” Karl said. “This way.”

Father and Mother answered without a moment’s hesitation. Of course, Helene is thinking of meeting Christiane and subjecting her to something even worse. But they had no intention of resisting. Even if their daughter would suffer worse if they took Helene to Christiane’s room, neither Karl nor Marianne could resist Helene.

They take Helene and her now-triplet to Christiane’s room. Even when Karl called out to her and entered himself, Christiane was still sitting upright on the bed, her eyes unfocused and gazing somewhere far away and beyond their sight.

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“Why don’t you say something, Christiane?” Helene said. “How can you stay silent when I’ve come to visit you myself?”

“…………”

Christiane did not move. Even when Helene approached her bed, Christiane didn’t even turn to look, she looked just like a doll.

“What insolence!” Sophie cried as she stormed up. “Lady Helene is speaking to you personally! Why don’t you say something?!”

Sophie smacked Christiane on the cheek. And as soon as Christiane saw her, she went from the middle of her bed to falling off it.

“Hyi…!” Christiane squealed.

“So! You can move, after all!” Sophie snapped. “Now answer Lady Helene’s question!”

“Hyii…!” Christiane squealed as she crawled to the corner of her room. “Please forgive me! Please forgive me! Please forgive me!” she repeated, holding her head and trembling violently.

It seemed that was all she could do, listening was out of the question.

“Suppose it can’t be helped,” Helene said. “Lord Karl, you know something, don’t you? Where and how did Cristiane find such staff and products? If you don’t tell me everything you know, consider your banishment from our faction permanent.”

“We-Well, that’s…” Karl said, “our daughter did it without our knowledge… we know nothing of what she did…”

“You’re useless!” Helene screamed, frustrated. “If you don’t know anything about this, then there is no question about how we will deal with House Reingen.”

Scared from the stronger push on her husband, Marianne stammered, “Ah, umm… my daughter seems to have done something with the Crepe Cafe. Perhaps the pudding came from the same place…”

Fearing for the existence of their House, she spilled everything that could have been related. And at that, Helene now had a rough idea of what was going on.

There is no doubt that the crepe cafe served crepes at the evening party. And it seems that crepe cafe is involved with pudding because it is also some sort of sweet that they can manufacture. In other words, if you go to that crepe cafe, you should know what’s going on.

“I see…” Helene said. “Well, this is fine. I’ll have to tell Father all about today.”

“Thank you very much!” Karl and Marianne cried, bowing to Helene at this slim sliver of hope, even without any explicit mention of reciprocation or protection.

After leaving House Reingen’s residence, Helene decided to go home today. She could have gone straight to the crepe cafe, but she was getting tired of it all. She thought she would be fine for today because she could report some progress to her father, Duke Alto.

Yesterday, Helene reported to her father and he asked her to continue gathering information, and that was the end of the discussion. Helene had school today, so she thought it would be nice to stop by the crepe cafe on her way home, but she came across an unexpected piece of news while at Berne Academy. It seemed that a certain trading firm had started selling this “pudding” yesterday.

Since Berne Academy is attended by the children of high-ranking nobles, there were many who attended Helene’s evening party. Of course, the people who learned about it there would also find out about it being sold by a merchant afterward.

Helene thinks. Perhaps that company is the same company that runs the crepe cafe. From what she’s heard, it seems that the store selling pudding is different from the crepe cafe, but that’s a minor problem. On the way back, Helene confirmed from outside that the company’s store was selling pudding, and went home satisfied.

She told her father all the news she had heard at school and that she had confirmed pudding was being sold at that store, as rumored. Here was the fatal miscalculation and misunderstanding of Duke Bayen and his daughter.

Of course, both Helene and Alto know about Caanza Trading Firm. However, Helene has never actually visited Caanza’s store. She had no way of knowing that the store she had observed today was Caanaz’s first branch in the royal capital.

Both Helene and Alto decided that the store selling pudding was a weak company since it ran a crepe cafe selling to commoners. If the two of them had properly collected information or had visited Caanza, this misunderstanding would not have occurred.

The two didn’t know that the crepe cafe was run by Caanza, and even though they had confirmed the store was selling pudding, they didn’t bother to learn that it was Caanza’s store.

If Alto had been told it was Caanza’s store, he would have noticed it, but to begin with, he despised them for running a crepe cafe selling to commoners and wouldn’t have bothered to investigate past that.

They decided to claim that the rights to “Pudding” belonged to House Bayen, this weak firm would easily raise their hand and protest. And they thought that the company must have stolen the Hexen White Porcelain, though Alto did not know where it came from or how it came to be served at Helene’s party. If that’s the case, they’ll be able to threaten them with the accusation of stealing Hexen tableware alongside the right to pudding.

“I see,” Alto said. “Well done, Helene. Suppose it’s all up to me from here, now.”

Without even realizing who they were dealing with, the Father and Daughter of Bayen rushed to Hell on their own.