30.
“I’m talking about the rumors that if the Aschuren hadn’t funded the revolution, it would have failed.”
*Creeak.* A hard cane scraped against the floor of the carriage.
“The reason those who were outsiders and commoners in this country could pour their wealth into the revolutionary army without reservation was not just their capacity to accumulate wealth. It was their desperate yearning to escape a life of being pointed at and despised as mere commoners.”
“…Why are you saying such things all of a sudden?”
A sinister voice cut through Freya’s words. She continued as if she hadn’t heard him.
“But they had to watch the republic they’d struggled so hard to achieve collapse twice in such a futile manner… The sense of frustration must have been immense.”
Freya stopped there and sealed her lips. Asil, who had been waiting for the next words, stared at her for a long time before finally opening his own.
“Why are you telling me this?”
Asil’s sharp gaze pierced Freya like a spear.
Freya feigned calm as she looked at the hero of her memories. Asil Delaporte and the secrets of the Delaporte family had been buried like lava flowing deep beneath the earth, destined to erupt one day. When their secrets were finally revealed, the Empire was swept up in the winds of revolution once again, and three months before her death, at the age of twenty-four, the Grandcen became a republic.
Since then, her life and surroundings had changed countless times depending on her choices, but the man before her remained a constant. No matter how many lives she lived, Asil Delaporte was always the protagonist of the third revolution and the hero of the republic.
That was why Freya had to win Asil Delaporte over to her side—right here, right now.
“You’re asking the obvious. Aren’t we already in the same boat, so to speak?”
“What is that supposed to….”
“Auguste Delaporte is by my husband’s side.”
At the mention of his eldest son’s name, Asil’s body tensed as if he were about to spring up.
“It was at the Imperial Boarding School that Max met Auguste, wasn’t it?”
Freya looked away, feigning ignorance, and continued.
“The eldest son of the Delaporte family, who carried the blood of commoners, and the grandson of Max Russell, who was despised and bullied… It was an inevitable combination.”
A son of a commoner-turned-capitalist and the grandson of a revolutionary hero meeting in a space filled with noble offspring. It was, come to think of it, a strange affair.
“But why would Auguste, who detests the nobility, attend a place like the Imperial Boarding School?”
Freya’s turquoise eyes turned toward the chillingly composed Aschuren.
“Perhaps the original purpose… was to create a second Max Russell. Though it seems to have failed, as I never let go of Max Russell until the end.”
In her early twenties, the woman who had barely shed her girlhood gave a bitter smile and spoke of a massive secret in a voice as light as if they were sharing casual pleasantries.
“You couldn’t exactly present the son-in-law of the most powerful noble family in the Empire as the symbol of a new revolutionary army, could you? Isn’t that right, Commander of the New Revolutionary Army?”
A cold metallic sound rang out. In the next moment, a blade grazed Freya’s neck.
“Mademoiselle. Who did you hear that from?”
The man, holding the sword detached from his cane to her throat, applied pressure. Red blood began to trickle down the edge of the blade. As his murderous intent took shape, she felt strangely at ease. Dying at his hands was not the issue. This was the third time she had utilized the knowledge gained from her repeated lives in front of someone else. Unlike with Inès or Dr. Sigmund Neumann, it seemed difficult to brush this off vaguely.
But this time, she had a contingency plan.
“Benoît Russell. I heard it from him.”
“Benoît Russell… said that I was the commander of the revolutionary army?”
That was impossible. Max’s father, Benoît Russell, hadn’t even known Asil’s true identity, and he had been dead long before the third revolution broke out. However, it was nearly impossible for the investigators of the Grandcen or the members of the revolutionary army to track where his final days were spent. There was no way to verify the truth.
“I only heard from him that the previous head of the Delaporte family had secretly provided funds for the revolution. The rest is my speculation.”
“…Does Max Russell know this, too?”
“No. My husband doesn’t know.”
The man, who had been a gentleman enjoying a day of fortune, then a seasoned businessman, and was now the cold-blooded leader of a revolutionary army, asked coldly.
“Have you told anyone else about this?”
“If I had, you would be dealing with my father, not me, right now.”
He was likely weighing whether to keep her alive or kill her. She couldn’t be sure what decision Asil Delaporte would make. She only hoped that the caution and gambler’s instinct of this man—an outsider, one of the Empire’s top capitalists, and the head of the revolutionary army—would flow in the direction she anticipated.
…How much time had passed?
Amidst the tension that made it impossible to breathe, she suddenly heard signs of someone outside the carriage. The coachman was in conversation with someone. As their attention naturally drifted outside, the atmosphere thankfully eased.
A moment later, someone knocked softly on the carriage door.
Instead of answering the person outside, Asil asked, “Freya Blanc, what did you want by bringing this up? If you’re going to say it’s because of the 50 Sekt bill, don’t bother. You don’t look like the type to risk your life for such a trivial thing.”
Her body, relieved of its tension, felt as if it might collapse, but Freya clasped her hands together and stated her true purpose.
“I want to protect my husband’s company. Please help me.”
“Don’t tell me you even know who is targeting your husband’s company?”
“I even know whose hands the canal business that Benoît Russell was running was about to be ruined by.”
“Haa….”
She had layers upon layers of strategies hidden within her. The most difficult and dangerous person he had dealt with in the past few years was a woman in her early twenties.
Asil said, giving up halfway as he sheathed his sword.
“That seems like a too-exorbitant demand for the price of keeping one’s mouth shut.”
“If you help me, I will give you what you want.”
“What we want?”
But there was still a surprise left for him. The woman paused for a moment, gazed at Asil, and whispered quietly.
“The spark of the third revolution.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“That’s what I’m saying. I saw it with my own two eyes—Madam Rossignol stormed into the office, screaming, ‘If that crazy woman threatens me one more time, I will do whatever it takes to drag her onto the witness stand!’”
Claude, a veteran of the company, was recounting to a new recruit the incident from last year when he had seen Madam Rossignol in person.
“Then, the fact that the Madam suddenly appeared at the office two weeks ago, could it be…”
“She probably came to keep an eye on things again, thinking things had finally quieted down.”
“Then, by any chance, the fact that she didn’t show up last week…”
“Exactly. Another poor woman living somewhere must have been caught in the Madam’s surveillance net.”
“But is she really such a scary person? From what I heard, I thought she was… someone with gaudy tastes or a frightening appearance, but in person, she was so… beautiful.”
Seeing the recruit blushing, Claude clicked his tongue, as if to say the lad knew nothing.
“That’s why it’s even scarier. What on earth must she be doing to make people avoid that face and figure? Why, the boss doesn’t even manage to go home ten times in a year… Oh, where are you all going?”
Claude, flustered as the employees scattered, felt a chilling premonition and turned around.
“Bo, Boss.”
Max, staring steadily at the terrified employee with his ice-blue eyes, opened his mouth.
“Lefranc, if you want to work here for a long time, it would be better to keep your mouth shut.”
“A, I… so, sorry. I will be careful.”
Max looked down at the employee as if leaving a warning before stepping into the president’s office. Claude slumped into his seat and grumbled.
“Tsk, why did he have to come in just then…”
The new recruit, watching Claude’s mood, pointedly changed the subject.
“Ah, did you hear about the horse racing competition last week? A jockey who had never won first place before took the lead, and a 40-fold dividend exploded.”
“Oh, really?”
Another employee showed interest, but Claude, annoyed because of Max, scoffed.
“Tsk tsk, Georges. In the first place, if you’re not a noble or a bourgeois, they’d kick you out at the entrance of the racecourse, so what does it matter to commoners like us whether it’s forty times or four hundred times?”
“But if we could sneak in and buy a betting ticket, our lives might change.”
“Stop talking nonsense and get to work.”
Even though he had been the one chatting away enthusiastically until just now. While the other employees mentally cursed Claude, Auguste, who had finished lunch, walked past the employees and into the president’s office.
Max was alone in the office. So that was it. Learning the business, my foot. Auguste, feeling spiteful for no reason, teased him.
“Is your wife not coming out today either?”
“Yeah, she was… with her dress this morning.”
Max, who was already sitting down and flipping through documents, stopped and looked up at Auguste.
“Auguste, when is the Imperial Ball?”
“The last Friday of this month. Why do you ask all of a sudden?”
Max, who had been lost in thought for a moment, organized his papers and put on the jacket he had taken off.
“I’m going out for a moment.”
Auguste asked in surprise, wondering why he was going out again when he must have just finished lunch.
“Where are you going?”