Chapter 3
Chapter 3
The system blinked as if to say the quest wasn’t over yet.
[But what should we do?
Our hero, Grand Duke Cassis Luwin, has gone bankrupt.
The bankrupt Duke is likely to focus more on his own family than on the continent’s political situation or the empire’s survival.
That’s right!
The empire, and furthermore, the continent is currently facing the threat of destruction!]
Ha.
[At present, the empire’s only hope is you, the player ‘Irina Seike’.]
Ha…
No matter how desperate, I should never have messed with the original story.
In other romance novels, when you alter the original story, the male lead falls for the person who possessed them, or the villain falls in love.
Why does mine end up with the male lead going bankrupt?
[‘Irina Seike’.
Please pay off the debt of the empire’s hero, Cassis Luwin, and save the empire from destruction!
The main quest, ‘Prevent the Empire’s Destruction’, will proceed simultaneously with the linked quest ‘Repay the Grand Duke Luwin Family’s Debt’.
Do you accept this quest?
<Accept>
<Decline>]
‘…So I can decline?’
If I don’t accept the ‘Prevent Destruction’ quest, won’t someone else prevent the empire’s destruction instead?
Or, well, let it be destroyed.
I’ll just enjoy my life until it’s destroyed.
[No! Ahhh! No!]
[Wait! No! Irina, no!]
As expected, the system went into a panic.
‘Ah, why? I don’t want to do it. I won’t pay off the debt!’
No, I can’t pay it off!
If you can refuse to inherit debt, why do I have to pay off someone else’s debt?
Isn’t it the male protagonist sitting over there who should resolve the empire’s destruction, not me?
[That’s right, the male lead should resolve the destruction.]
[Our Irina just needs to pay off Cassis’s debt so that the male lead can resolve the destruction~]
[It’s quite simple, right?]
‘Are you kidding me?’
[Your speech, has become shorter.]
[How scary……]
The amount I repaid was by no means small.
‘What happens if I press ‘Decline’?’
[What do you think? All the linked quests and everything will be destroyed, and we’ll be heading towards destruction.]
‘Damn it.’
Destruction? Destruction!
Why should an ordinary citizen like me be responsible for the fate of the empire!
The system was silent for a while after my curse, then continued.
[…I understand. I feel the same way. How did this beautiful world come to face destruction.]
I wasn’t even curious about why it was being destroyed.
I just felt a surge of resentment, wondering why it had to be me.
But regardless of how resentful I felt, the system continued with its words.
[But what can we do! Press ‘Yes’!]
[That’s right! Irina! Hurry!!]
Faced with the system’s message full of exclamation marks, I shook my head for now.
Instead, I tried to check the details of the second main quest, ‘Repay the Grand Duke Luwin Family’s Debt’.
[‘Repay the Grand Duke Luwin Family’s Debt’ quest proceeds in conjunction with ‘Prevent the Empire’s Destruction’.]
[If you accept the ‘Prevent the Empire’s Destruction’ quest, the second quest will be automatically accepted.]
[Once a quest is accepted, it cannot be canceled.]
But it only showed this obvious information and didn’t reveal the details.
I was very anxious from the start because it didn’t tell me exactly how much the debt was.
As I hesitated for a long time, the system spoke to me again.
[What are you worrying about? We’ll help you this time too.]
[That’s right. Trust us, Irina. Ah, ah, aah! !*Of?1lsms what?!?!?!]
Seeing the seemingly broken text, I shook my head with a sigh.
‘What exactly are you, System?’
What could their identity be that every time they reveal a bit about themselves, the text seems to break like this?
[That’s a secret for now.]
[If you ‘Accept’ the quest, that information might be unlocked?]
Forget it.
Who cares what the system’s identity is?
What’s important is the debt.
The debt.
‘I won’t do it.’
I turned off all the system windows.
When I turned my head back to the reception room, I saw Ijin with a strangely subdued atmosphere.
Why?
When I turned my head slightly, I saw Cassis in a similar state.
The reception room of the Count Seike family may look shabby from the outside, but it’s a warm and cozy space.
It always has been.
That space had been filled with a suffocating silence since the moment Cassis entered.
I wanted to somehow break the atmosphere, but I couldn’t shake off my depressed mood due to the quest.
I could only steal glances at Cassis Luwin’s face, alternating between thoughts of ‘He’s handsome’ and ‘How did he become a debtor’.
[He’s handsome, right?]
‘Yes.’
As befitting the male lead, he had an incredibly handsome appearance.
Pale white skin, jet-black hair, and red eyes.
His looks alone were impressive, but the gloomy atmosphere surrounding him made him seem even more decadent.
Was the male lead originally like this?
[Of course not.]
‘……’
[Let’s just close our eyes and help him.]
I dismissed the system window that kept popping up on its own and clapped my hands to get everyone’s attention.
Rather than staying in this atmosphere for hours, it seemed better to send Cassis to his room.
“Um, Your Grace must be tired, so would you like to go in and rest first? William will guide you to your room.”
“I’ll excuse myself then.”
“Please rest well. We’ll send word again at dinner time.”
Although our dinner will be very modest given our circumstances.
He nodded slightly when I asked.
* * *
As soon as I sent Cassis to his room, the first thing I did was try to find out what had happened to the Grand Duke Luwin family.
‘Right, I’ve been too busy paying off debt to pay attention.’
I had been so preoccupied with paying off debt that I couldn’t even spare any attention to the original story.
For me, the original story was only used to pay off debt.
For example, where a mine would be discovered, how that would cause gold prices to plummet, which ship would sink, causing wine prices in the empire to skyrocket… I fully utilized such information.
‘At first, I was worried about what would happen if the original story changed.’
But from the middle point on, I didn’t care about such things.
With so much debt to repay, what else could I do?
But to think the result would be the male protagonist’s bankruptcy.
‘Hey, System… Did it really have to be like this?’
[It wasn’t me who did it, it was you, Irina.]
Still, does it make sense for a Grand Duke’s family to go bankrupt?
[So Irina. Aren’t you going to check your tutorial reward?]
‘Later. I’m busy.’
Pushing aside the system window that had been blinking since earlier, telling me to check the rewards and quests, I checked the past newspapers with Ijin.
It seemed good to at least know some general information about the Grand Duke Luwin family’s bankruptcy.
And after confirming all the truth, I could only quietly bite my lip.
The Grand Duke family’s bankruptcy had been progressing for several years, with the current Duke, Cassis, trying his best to repay the debt.
But despite his efforts, the debt was enormous.
And that debt…
‘Aah, it’s because of me.’
[I told you it was because of you!]
“Wow… It’s not easy to go bankrupt like this. They invested heavily in Ramals tobacco, but the ship carrying that tobacco sank.”
Originally, the investor was a family that had a cooperative relationship with Seike.
Knowing from the original story that the ship would sink, I had suggested that it would be better not to invest in it.
And it seems the Grand Duke Luwin family took that place.
“And while the previous Duke was on his way to Pering Port to resolve issues related to that, he died in an accident in which the magic of the teleport gate was cut off.”
The current Duke’s uncle started regency on behalf of the then-minor Duke.
[…Irina. This isn’t your fault. You know that, right?]
The system acted as if it was urgently trying to comfort me, but I had already pressed my lips tightly shut.
I didn’t know that the small, trivial things I had done would accumulate to lead to such a big event.
How was it in the original story?
At least the previous Duke didn’t die like this.
In the end, because of me, Cassis lost his father and guardian.
“As soon as the current Duke came of age, he inherited the title, but by then the debt was already astronomical, and one of the main sources of income for the Grand Duke family, the magic stone mine, was banned from mining due to a contract mistake made when the uncle was acting as regent.”
“W-wait a minute. So the Grand Duke family doesn’t have much income from their territory now?”
“That’s right. Any decent businesses they had were either embezzled by the uncle or completely ruined.”
I messed up my hair in frustration.
I made the male lead go bankrupt!
[That’s not it, you just provided the trigger.]
I, I put our Cassis in a mountain of debt.
[That wasn’t Irina, it was Cassis’s uncle.]
Because I was busy paying off my own debt, I sold all the information about the mine the male lead was going to invest in to someone else!
And the Ramals tobacco and the death of the previous Duke too!
I really only tweaked minor settings, but the male lead’s family ended up ruined.
“Ahhhhh, does this make any sense?”
[There’s nothing that can’t happen!]
[That’s right! These things can happen!]
[Don’t worry too much! We’re here for you!]
I sat down, messing up my hair.
What should I do about this?
[Now! Press ‘Accept’ on the quest!]
The current state of the Grand Duke Luwin family was very similar to the early stages of the Count Seike family’s bankruptcy.
Only, the scale of the bankruptcy was about two zeros more than the debt the Count Seike family had incurred.
I opened the system window and skimmed through the tutorial quests I had previously completed.
The hardships I had gone through over the past 5 years flashed by.
[SYSTEM | Calculation complete! Please check your rewards and next quest!]
‘Okay, later. I’m busy.’
It was only thanks to the system that I was able to repay at all, but the process was by no means easy.
There was even a moment when I truly felt desperate.
I still can’t forget the day when the debt repayment date was imminent, and I didn’t have a single penny, feeling utterly lost.
If it weren’t for that benefactor who helped me then, I would probably still be struggling with debt now.
More than the fact that he went bankrupt because of me, I wanted to help Cassis if I could because I remembered receiving someone’s help in the worst moment.
But I just didn’t have the capacity to do so.
“I’m sorry, but there’s no choice.”
Seike has barely recovered from bankruptcy, how could we help Luwin, what could we do?
[……]
“I’m sorry. There’s no choice.”
When I turned my head, Ijin was organizing the documents.
My brother, two years younger than me, returned home without even graduating from the academy.
Since returning, he’s been working to death with me. He’s not even of age yet.
My gaze moved from his platinum blonde hair with the same curls as mine, past his face, to his slightly worn shirt.
Although the servants kept it clean, it showed signs of long wear.
The pen in Ijin’s hand was a slightly old fountain pen I had gifted him, scraping together our meager resources.
To contribute even a little to our tight finances, he gathered information, studied, and prepared documents, his fingertips never free of ink.
“Yes, there’s no choice.”
Taking care of my own family is more important right now.
[……]
The system didn’t say anything.
“Young miss, young master, dinner is ready.”
In the meantime, the head maid came to find us.
“Ah, I’ll be right down!”
“Yes, Will has gone to inform His Grace.”
“Okay, thank you.”
I shook my head and got up from my seat.
I should treat him as well as possible and send him off quietly.
I didn’t want to get tangled up with debt anymore.
Torryy
The same conversation over and over again is so annoying.