Chapter 35
Chapter 35
Wow... fuck.
The scale is on another level.
Is this the majesty of a capitalist noona?
When Professor Iris only tosses me a research lab and makes a show of it, this noona just drops a mansion on me.
It felt like my brain was melting in real time.
The only thing on my mind was ditching school and everything else and running straight over there.
More than anything.
'I've got somewhere to run if my father ever sets his sights on me!'
I had an escape hatch.
Emergency exit secured!
"If you want, our trade house will manage the mansion free of charge for as long as you need to study at the academy. We'll even provide gardeners and caretakers."
"Oh my."
"Of course, if you're going to visit during vacations and such in that period, we'll prepare everything for that as well."
I could only grin from ear to ear.
The anger and injustice I had felt just moments ago were gone.
I killed them inside myself.
Capitalism therapy is terrifying.
"Professor..."
I almost blurted out "I love you."
"My, is that a confession? To a married woman?"
What?
"Do you also read minds?"
"I can't. It's just that Cassian wears his emotions so plainly on his face that it's obvious."
Damn.
I need to cover this up fast.
"Uh... no, it's a love of the almighty power of money. Please don't misunderstand."
I almost said capitalist love.
I would've had my head chopped off for treason.
"Hahaha! I like your honesty!"
That was when Müller noona burst into her trademark hearty laughter.
From far away, I heard a familiar laugh carried on the wind.
"...Pfft, ahaha."
A clear, pure laugh.
'...What?'
It sounds familiar.
Who is it?
'Have people been telling me I've been grinning so much that I'm hearing things?'
But my gaze had no intention of leaving the deed.
No idea. What do I care?
Right now, I had the 'southern manor' in my hands.
As I buried my nose in the papers and sniffed at them, Viscountess Müller took out a second item from under the table.
"Now then."
Click.
It was a small wooden box, about the size of a palm.
An antique-looking case engraved with ornate patterns, clearly expensive at a glance.
"No, that's more than enough. This alone is already enough to give me indigestion. If you give me any more, I'll go bald. My conscience won't allow it."
I waved my hands frantically.
The deed alone is already too much—what else is there to give?
At this rate, am I really going to get roped into this?
But Viscountess Müller slid the box gently toward me.
"You'll regret it if you don't take it."
"..."
My weak-willed side kicked in.
Regret?
That's the word I hate most.
"...What is that?"
"First, hear me out. This isn't a gift being handed over unconditionally; it's a kind of 'deal proposal.'"
"A deal?"
"Because I want to borrow a bit of your talent."
A deal proposed by someone wealthy enough to hand over a deed like it's nothing.
That means we're talking at least a whole building here.
I swallowed hard.
"W-well... I'll hear you out first. I should at least listen, yes."
"Then open the box."
"Yes ma'am."
Click.
Carefully opening the lid, I saw a single gold coin sitting all alone on a red velvet cushion.
The shine wasn't ordinary at all.
'Huh? That's all?'
It was only one coin.
After being hit with that giant nuclear bomb called a deed, a single gold coin was starting to look downright adorable.
Just as I was about to hide my disappointment and close the lid, a delicate pattern engraved on the coin's surface caught my eye.
A picture of ten stacked gold bars.
And beneath that, a unique serial number and the imperial seal.
As I fiddled with the coin in confusion, Viscountess Müller set down her teacup and asked.
"Do you perhaps not know what that is?"
"I don't. Is it just some kind of commemorative coin? What does it mean?"
"For the record, the gold coin I just gave you isn't solid gold; it's gold-plated. It's currency, after all."
Gold-plated?
So it's fake?
I was still puzzled.
Perhaps because this world was designed to be easy for Korean readers to adapt to, trade mostly used banknotes, and the unit system, apparently borrowed from the won, used something called imperial hwan.
Gold and silver coins were treated like ancient relics you only saw in museums.
But a gold-plated gold coin?
And it's currency?
Viscountess Müller propped her chin on her hand and asked.
"How many gold bars are pictured inside that coin?"
"Ten."
"That's right."
She grinned in obvious delight and dropped a hint.
"It's far more valuable than the villa I gave you earlier. If you take it to a bank, the branch manager will treat you like royalty."
At that moment, one insane guess flashed through my mind.
"Don't tell me... the thing I'm thinking of?"
"Seems like it. If you take that coin to the imperial vault, they'll exchange it for ten actual gold bars, no questions asked. It's a payment guarantee check backed by the imperial family."
"...!"
Wow.
Fuck.
It was real.
The coin in my hand suddenly felt heavy.
So this is that legendary high-denomination check.
My hand started trembling.
*
I swallowed hard.
Rank and dignity and all that—none of that mattered right now.
"I know I'll look ridiculously money-grubbing asking this, but... how much does one gold bar weigh?"
"Ask away. Want me to tell you the price in imperial currency instead?"
As expected of Viscountess Müller, neat and efficient as always.
Her fingers tapped lightly on the table.
Tap, tap.
The answer that followed that light tapping was heavy.
"An imperial-standard gold bar weighs 12.5 kg apiece."
12.5 kilos, huh.
'Damn, that's heavier than a pack of 2-liter bottles of water?'
And that's gold?
Ten of them?!
"At current rates, that would be worth about 3 billion imperial hwan apiece."
"...3 billion?"
Considering imperial hwan and Korean won are almost 1:1.
For reference, the tea in front of me is 12,000 hwan.
That's about the price you'd pay if you got gouged for a single-origin hand drip at a hot café in Seoul.
That means the 1:1 exchange rate checks out.
3 billion times 10.
30 billion...
Wow, fuck.
That gives me the fucking chills.
I couldn't close my mouth.
30 billion.
You'd have to hit first place in the lottery about twenty times in a row to even touch that kind of money.
Viscountess Müller watched my slack-jawed expression and snickered.
"It may be pocket change compared to the Court Count's fortune, but that's why I like you. Because you're someone money can buy."
"..."
"If you were an heir, this amount of money couldn't buy you. Of course, they can't technically own the family's assets either, but they can't help thinking of them as theirs."
Fair enough.
A truth that hit bone.
Family assets are under the family name.
It's basically the same as corporate-owned capital.
Even if you're the head of the house, you can't treat it as personal property.
What I mean is.
It means not even a single ten-hwan bill will ever be passed down to me.
This is the fate of a noble child who falls out of the succession line.
Personal assets my father would pass down?
My father isn't just pretending to be a clean-handed official; he's a real miser, so he barely has any personal assets at all.
Even if I ransacked my father's personal safe, I'd probably get at best that one coin—maybe 30 billion imperial hwan, if that?
Of course, my father was oddly progressive for this age.
In other families, it was common to dump even personal assets entirely on the heir, but wouldn't my father still leave me about 30 to 40 percent of his personal wealth?
If it's 30 percent, that's 9 billion hwan.
If it's 40 percent, that's 12 billion hwan.
But whether it's 30 percent or 40 percent, either way.
Right now I was looking at roughly three times the cash I'd have to wait my whole life to inherit.
How long is my dad going to live?
Hmm.
He looks like he'll live at least another forty years.
That means if I keep flattering Father and acting all deferential, I'll barely get it when I'm in my sixties.
But three times that.
Not twice, three times.
Ah, my hands are shaking.
"You're smart, so you'll know that compared to control over 3 trillion in family assets you'd inherit only after a lifetime of working for the family and stressing over keeping up appearances until you die,"
Viscountess Müller drove the point home.
"a 30 billion personal fortune you can spend however you like without a care until the day you die isn't necessarily worth less."
"..."
It's not even that.
For a guy like me who wants to retire early and do nothing all day, 30 billion is way bigger!
Fuck, yeah. Of course.
Power? Honor?
Tell them all to go fuck themselves.
Look at my father. He's one of the most powerful people in the empire, and yet he's aging after a lifetime of work.
He was probably studying all day in that pose before I was born, and by the time I was born he was working, buried in ledgers, and breaking his brain to keep the emperor happy.
And that's not all.
He's going to keep working.
Until when?
'Probably until they put him in the coffin.'
If I'd been born a noble too, and if what I was born with had been something familiar, maybe I'd have that kind of drive too.
The problem is that I'm living a second life.
Usually, ambition and the desire for success are aimed at upward mobility.
If you're born with a dirt spoon, you aim for a copper spoon. If you're born with a silver spoon, you aim for a gold spoon.
A dream like becoming a chaebol second-generation heir is supposed to be impossible to achieve.
But I pulled it off from birth with a freakish reincarnation loophole.
Why would I need to work?
I'm going to laze around all I want, damn it.
With this one gold coin, I can laze around and live off it for the rest of my life.
I can go to the southern manor, farm and fish, and whenever I get bored, sell off a gold bar worth 3 billion and live in comfort.
"..."
I gripped the gold coin tightly.
The hard, rough feel of it in my palm had never been so lovable.
"By now, you're definitely in the mood to hear the conditions for receiving that gold coin, right?"
Viscountess Müller asked leisurely.
I deeply regretted my rude comeback from earlier, when I'd brushed her off with, "Let's hear the explanation first."
Being rude in front of 30 billion is a sin. Blasphemy.
I immediately uncrossed my legs and brought them together neatly.
Then I folded my hands respectfully under the table and bowed my head.
"Please, speak, benefactor."
Ah, no. If it's the trade house...
"Trade House Master."
"AHAHAHAHA!"
Viscountess Müller smiled brightly, looking as if to say, "That's it!"
Her hearty laughter echoed across the terrace.
"The condition is simple."
"What is it?"
I'll do anything as long as it's not murder for hire.
"Until graduation from the academy, you just need to look after Lily."
"...Huh?"
"...Oh, shit."
For a moment, the curse almost burst out of my mouth.
Blinded by 30 billion, I'd forgotten for a moment.
That the fundamental reason I'd gotten entangled with this woman was that pink-headed saintess at the bottom of that bandit gang.
And then I immediately realized one more thing.
"You shoved her into my lab first because you had a plan all along, didn't you?"
"Nice to see you're quick on the uptake."
Which means.
"You can refuse this if you want. If you do, Lily will be pulled back out of the lab. However,"
Viscountess Müller said with a very amused smile.
"If you accept, then until graduation Lily will have one more guardian besides me."
In my past life, I was a dirt spoon—now I'm the protector of a pink-headed saintess in this life?
At that moment, Iris noona's line from this Thursday flashed through my mind.
'I tried to stop it too... but there was an offer I simply couldn't refuse.'
Now that I'd actually been hit over the head with a 30-billion bundle of cash, I get it.
'This really is an offer you can't refuse.'
The crown prince is scary.
And the 30 billion in front of me is adorable.
'Ah, I'm seriously losing it.'
I thought nothing was as precious as my life.
If money doesn't do it, then yeah, you're really just short on money.
The moment I suddenly realized I was putting my own neck on the scale.
Jolt!
The married woman in front of me looked dangerous beyond measure.
Shit.
It's a gumiho. That was definitely a wicked gumiho.