CH 242

Alice was no longer Alice Rose.

That name was already abandoned more than a year ago.

Now she was the head of a decent county family.

Although, she is the only member of the family.

‘Count Alice Leona. Now that’s my proud new name.’

Half a year ago, she was one of those who contributed to the raid of monsters that occurred near the coastline of the border.

Armed with the fairies’ power, Alice successfully defeated several large monsters among the imperial soldiers.

After she eventually returned, she received the great gift of a Count title from the imperial family.

Afterwards, Alice took care of the estates she had acquired as the Count and managed her assets.

Of course, she usually spends more time with the fairies rather than fighting.

As a contractor of the fairy king, Alice received a lot of help from the fairies until she reached full adulthood.

And now it was Alice’s turn to help them.

In order to keep the secret forest of the fairies safe and prevent the invasion of ordinary humans, people like Alice with the blood of ‘Fairy Summoners’ flowing were essential.

In addition, fairy summoners were essential to maintaining the fairies’ power.

Fairies despise humans trying to use them and annoy them, but ironically, if they live a life completely cut off from humans, their power gradually weakens and eventually disappears.

Fairy summoners were special people who could communicate with such fairies.

Contrary to normal humans stressing the fairies just by their existence, those who were born with the summoner’s blood had no effect on the fairies.

However, fairy summoners were not unconditionally good people, so sometimes there were contractors who demanded excessive things from the fairies just because they had signed a contract with them.

No, actually it happened quite often.

Alice’s (former) family did the same.

‘Cancel all contracts with such bad contractors. I’ll supply all the mana you’re lacking.’

And Alice, the current Fairy King’s contractor, was in charge of supplying the vast amount of mana, that is, human energy, to the fairies.

She possessed hundreds of times more mana than other fairy summoners.

Thanks to this, all the fairies who had suffered from the evil contractors in the meantime broke their contracts with them.

Of course, among those who fell from being a fairy summoner to an ordinary person in an instant, there was the Rose family.

‘It rather is a thing. Just because you are a summoner forever, you can’t receive infinite favor from the fairies, when you only pay little in return.’

For the first time at that time, Alice felt the thrill of watching the fall of Duchy Rose.

The wealth that DUchy Rose had accumulated from generation to generation as a summoner family so far ran out in an instant while making up for the family’s businesses that had spread beyond their control in this generation.

They were a Duchy, now they were no different from a ruined family.

They were said to be in a lot of debt.

Of course, it had nothing to do with Alice.

In the empire, there was a system whereby even relatives could become perfect strangers without taking responsibility for anything after they were legally separated.

And she had already cut ties with the Rose family before the fall of the Rose family, and she had to live a new life.

But shamelessly afterwards, the members of the Rose family came to Alice and pressed her to ask the fairies to give them back their fairy summoner powers.

‘If you had begged, I would have thought about it, but now this is blackmail. You guys are not in a position to threaten me.’

‘Still, this is too much for family!’

‘Yes, that’s right. Even though we’re legally separated, we are still family by blood! How can you do this? You’re so cold-hearted!’

Cold-hearted is it?

As Alice pondered the word, she smiled for a moment.

The reason why they are being servile like this now is because Alice has a lot of things now.

And when Alice had nothing, they were so cold and aloof.

‘When I was young, Father and Mother were never not cold-hearted.’

‘What, what…… ?’

‘No, when did I…… !’