CH 13

“M-Ma’am, why do we suddenly have to pay a compensation fee?”

“Keria, you’ve been working at the mansion for three years, haven’t you? You ran errands for the kitchen.”

“Um… Y-Yes. How does that…”

Rachel laughed.

“Did you think I wouldn’t know? I guess you thought I wouldn’t, that’s why you did it.”

Watching Keria’s face turn pale, Rachel continued speaking without a care, “You wanted to be a meal assistant since it earns more for less work but you made a lot of mistakes, so you weren’t accepted. Since you were short on money, you began to use the kitchen’s food supplies without permission since last year.”

“What do you me… I never did that!”

“Right… I collected evidence just in case you made excuses, so don’t waste your breath. Did you not see what happened to Marsha?”

“Eek.”

Most of the workers in the mansion had indulged in some kind of misconduct.

Various types ranging from theft and neglect of duty to defamation to tattle-taling.

However, it was not known who, what, how much, and how wrong. It was because there were so many workers and even more problems.

She had to think about whether it was time to call Sian, the guild informant.

Marsha had come to see her.

‘Ma’am, I want to help you out.’

‘How do you plan on doing that?’

‘As you know, I ran a consolation party. It was a place where we shared things like worries, chatters, and gossip.’

‘And so?’

‘There are a lot of workers in the mansion that attend the meeting. I know their secrets.’

It was tempting to hear.

‘What kind of secrets exactly?’

‘Some of the workers have even committed crimes.’

‘I know that quite well.’

Marsha shook her head.

‘I know specifically who and what kind of irregularities have been committed. I know all about the evidence and where the records are.’

‘That’s huge.’

‘If you can reduce the compensation amount, I’ll organize everything. I swear to you that I will give you every bit of information needed without telling a lie.’

It wasn’t a bad offer. It was actually a really good one.

Rachel accepted Marsha’s offer. Each time she submitted evidence for a single worker, the compensation fee was drastically reduced.

As a result, the only compensation Marsha paid back was the three gold Rachel gave to Keria.

Compared to Rachel’s initial compensation fee, it was less than a booger.

“Ponya ordered street orphans to take care of the garden, which is her duty.”

“I… How could I…”

“You made a hole in the wall of the mansion to secretly bring in the children. When they took care of the garden, you gave them leftover bread and pretended you were working while getting paid.”

“…”

“I’m not going to collect money for the bread because you gave it to hungry children. Instead, you have to pay for the wall repair costs and the 125 gold pieces you received without working.”

“Ma’am, I don’t have that much money!”

“125 gold is not such a huge compensation fee.”

Rachel tilted her head and pointed to another servant standing next to her.

“I guess you can call Kanna’s fee a lot of money. I heard you secretly sold information of the Count’s finances and private property ownership to the guild. You’ve received more than 10,000 gold from them in total.”

The maids gathered, standing, as Rachel recited their crimes and compensation fees to pay.

At first the maids were doubtful. They thought their stupid madam had just happened to notice a few things.

However, when Rachel identified everyone’s crimes one by one, they had to admit that all their crimes had been discovered.

The first person to lie on the floor was Kerry.

“M-Ma’am! I’m so sorry! Please forgive me this one time!”

“I don’t want to.”

“Y-You can’t do this… Ma’am please have mercy…”

“What do you mean I can’t? When you do something bad, you need to be ready to accept the punishment. Or be nice so that I can try to overlook it. You’ve been sneaking around doing terrible things, even spreading malicious gossip, and you’re asking for mercy?”

“Noo… I’m sorry. I’m really… I’ll make sure it never happens again…”

“You were warned after Marsha got dismissed. Just do as I say before I get mad.”

Some looked devastated and some fell to the floor and wept just as Marsha had.

“I’ll kindly write down the amount each person has to pay, so you don’t have to worry about forgetting the amount. I can’t comfort you, but I’ll fire you all at once so that you can grieve together. You’ve…”

Rachel almost said, ‘You’ve worked hard,’ but let out a snort instead.

Worked hard, her foot.

“You’ve had a lot of fun extorting money in several ways, so try working hard this time.”

The compensation fee that was notified to the maids in front of her was close to 5,000 gold.

The Elosa family’s vault would be fuller and Rachel would receive more alimony. It was nice to hear and made her heart full of pride.

The whole mansion was in uproar.

Rachel fired most of the employees. The only ones left were three employees who had light crimes and had not been in the mansion for long.

She felt sorry for the three people who had to stay and take charge of all the work, and so she tripled their salaries.

Some protested and some were frustrated, but they went quiet when they saw evidence, statements of compensation amounts, and letters from the Guild’s debt collector.

The Guild’s debt collector, which sounded like a cool name, was just someone who collected unpaid money. He was known to do anything to get the money.

Rachel and Graham were the only people who were laughing at the house, eating snacks, and chatting.

“Mom, are we going to hang out every day now?”

“Yes, but life will be a little uncomfortable for a while. You have to bring your own water and clean your room.”

“It doesn’t matter! I’m so excited. I hope we continue to be like this.”

Rachel patted Graham on the head.

It was fortunate that Graham didn’t hate it, but Rachel was still concerned that she was the only child’s playmate.

It was common for children of noble families to grow up surrounded by people such as nannies, brothers, and sisters.

“Graham, don’t you need a friend?”

“I don’t.”

It was an unhesitant answer, but Graham soon became sad.

“Do you want me to have a friend?”

“Well, I suppose so. It’s good to hang out with friends your age. There’s no one in the mansion anymore, and I thought you might be bored.”

“I don’t mind being bored. All I need is mom.”

How sweet.

At this rate, if he met Dolorasa, he’d probably fall in love soon, right? She’d be sad when that time comes.

As Rachel stroked his head without saying a word, Graham was lost in thought.

“…”

“What’s wrong, Graham? Are you sad because mom wants you to play with friends?”

“Mom, do you hate me?”

“There’s no way I could do that! I don’t hate you. You’re my favorite person in the world. I just thought you’d be bored. I promise I won’t ever hate you or do anything to make you sad.”

She thought he’d thank her right away, but Graham was surprisingly silent again.

It wasn’t until sometime later that the child looked up at Rachel.

“…No, Mom. You don’t have to do that.”

“Huh?”

“I like mom, so I’ll protect her. To do that, I have to do things I don’t like. In the fairytale book, the prince goes to the scary monster to save the princess. I can at least play with my friend.”

Goodness…! How adorable…!

Rachel wrapped Graham in her arms.

“Graham is the best! You make mom so happy I could fly!”

Graham was surprised and clutched at Rachel’s back.

“N-No, Mom. Don’t fly! I don’t know how to fly!”

“Haha, alright. I won’t.”

For a while, the two of them hugged and rubbed cheeks together.

She spent a while adjusting to the tranquil atmosphere of the mansion.

They were people who did a half-hearted job, but they were quite a lot in number, so there was no vacancy.

To begin with, the meals became quite simple. Fortunately, there was one chef left, so Rachel didn’t have to cook for herself.

The garden was overgrown with weeds.

A bunch of dust rolled around the corner of the originally messy mansion.

A week passed and Carl returned to his mansion. He seemed very surprised at the changed appearance of the mansion.

She told Graham to go play alone in his room for a while and headed for the living room with Carl.

He waited for Rachel to sit before asking, “Madam. How could you do this? I did hear the rumors but how could you dismiss the workers like this?

“You left the mansion without notice, and think to nag me the moment you get back?”

“…Without notice.”

“‘It wasn’t without notice. Since you were with Theodore, the mansion’s ‘owner.’ That’s what you want to say, right?”

Carl shut his mouth when he heard the unusual sharp tone in Rachel’s voice.

Because Rachel was no longer acting naïve like in the past.

She was going to get a divorce soon, anyway, there was no need to be sneaky.

Rachel tapped the armrest of the chair with her fingertips.

“Why are you not responding? Oh, were you with Theodore? Then where? Did you ask Theodore to excuse you to go to your daughter’s house?”

And then Carl’s face turned pale. Due to his toiling work, the wrinkles older than his age made him look like a corpse.

“Seems like that’s the answer. Well, your daughter did get humiliated publicly, so someone had to comfort her. Since Theodore was restrained by Verengela and couldn’t, her one and only family member had to be with her.”

“…Madam, how did you…”

“I’m not a fool, how would I not know? I just pretended not to.”

“…”

“So…? Was it fun? How did you feel after helping your daughter with her affair and watching me beg for Theodore’s love?”

Carl lowered his head and Rachel’s eyes shone sharply.

Theodore, who cheated on his wife, and Jane, his lover, were both bad, of course.

However, Rachel found Jane’s father, Carl, who was aware of everything but kept silent and even helped with the affair, to be the most detestable.

It was time for the first retribution.