WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Haruto
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◈ The Pushover Young Lord in a Romance Fantasy Won't Take It Anymore ◈
Chapter 39: Laugh While You Can
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Calling Irina a “villainess” in the original story had always been misleading.
The merchant guild head had become so obsessed with women that he was on the verge of running the entire guild into the ground.
In other words, she had led the board's effort to remove its leader in order to save a company facing bankruptcy.
Wasn't that only natural?
She had not even used her subordinates as shields in the process.
Irina had taken full responsibility herself, and after the coup failed, she had borne the backlash alone.
She was not a villainess, but an exceptionally sensible woman.
More than that, she was a career woman who loved her work, an intellectual who knew how to stand against injustice.
“I place a very high value on you. Compared to you, Ethan is an idiot who isn't worth the dirt beneath your feet.”
That stupid bastard Ethan was the real villain.
In the original story, Irina's coup ultimately failed.
She was ruthlessly cast aside, reduced to nothing, and forced to drift through back alleys.
Yet it was at rock bottom that her true worth shone.
With nothing but her business sense and persistence, Irina built a merchant guild comparable to Patrian in just two or three years.
Knowing that future, how could I let her slip away?
She would become my greatest helper, even more valuable than Kyle.
“The Young Lord of Cardenos has made the first offer. Are you still going to stand there and watch?”
That was enough.
I held out my hand to Irina.
“You can't become the merchant guild head on your own. But if I'm behind you, things will be different.”
The Ashen Forest Expedition absolutely needed someone who could continuously secure funding and control its supply lines.
Irina was an indispensable masterpiece for the expedition.
“...And what,” Irina finally said with difficulty, “do you gain from this, Young Lord?”
She handled everything by weighing profit and loss.
Even now, her eyes measured the intentions behind my approach.
“The credit of a capable merchant guild head. No, let's call it trust.”
“...”
She clearly did not believe me.
Then again, no matter how highly Irina valued herself, it could not compare to my own assessment.
She probably thought that, in Young Lord Astin's eyes, she would be a puppet or a figurehead.
“You intend to use me.”
See?
It was simply regrettable that nothing I said would make her believe me.
I gave a casual shrug.
“Who knows? You don't seem like the type to let yourself be used so easily.”
I gave my outstretched hand a little shake.
The Irina I knew would take it even if she knew it was a trap.
“Make a choice you won't regret, Irina.”
She would not simply allow herself to be used.
That was surely what Irina was thinking.
* * *
Patrian Merchant Guild, Imperial Capital branch.
Irina locked the door to the Managing Director's office, a place no one else was permitted to enter, then collapsed onto the sofa.
The back that was always held straight now curled inward.
“Ha...”
Even her monocle, which could never be allowed the slightest disorder, had slipped to one side.
Irina tore it off and threw it onto the desk.
She covered her face with her cold hands and rubbed it.
“You want it too, don't you? You want to toss aside that merchant guild head obsessed with women and take the top seat yourself.”
The man's voice clung to her ears and refused to fade.
Those golden eyes, looking straight into hers, remained vivid before her.
Slowly, Irina lowered her hands.
They were trembling uncontrollably.
Was it the tremor that came from her tension finally breaking? Or the joy of seeing the goal she had desired her entire life within reach?
Even she could not clearly define it.
“Make a choice you won't regret, Irina.”
To Irina, betrayal was the result of calculating profit and loss.
Removing the merchant guild head obsessed with women was, in her view, the right thing to do.
But the world did not always turn out right simply because something was right.
She could not wait in the background for things to unfold as reason dictated.
She had to make them right.
That was the privilege of those with power, and the goal of those who sought great power.
“...Young Lord Astin.”
The legitimate son of Cardenos, the grand ducal house of the west.
With him at her back, her plan might succeed. She could make a wrong thing right.
But precisely because he was the legitimate son of Cardenos, he was dangerous.
He was no philanthropist.
Astin would use Irina, and Irina would use Astin. That was how they would each secure their own interests.
On the surface, it might look like a symbiotic relationship where they used one another, but reality was different.
He was Young Lord Astin. She could never regard him as an equal.
“Did I do the right thing?”
Irina had become one of Astin's cards. A disposable card he could use and discard whenever he wished.
If things went well, he would see things through with Irina. If they did not, she would be abandoned.
Gulp.
She could feel the weight of her dry swallow.
“Who knows? You don't seem like the type to let yourself be used so easily.”
As Astin had said, she had no intention of letting herself be used without resistance.
She had taken his hand because she meant to use Astin's position instead.
Whether that would truly be possible...
All at once, Irina found her endlessly troubled self unfamiliar.
People who knew Irina, Managing Director of Patrian, all said the same thing.
“If you cut Irina, mercury would flow instead of blood.”
A great merchant who pursued nothing but practicality and profit, who had retained her reason before every variable.
She had reached this position despite being branded a commoner, spilling only ink from her pen.
Blood and tears had no value to her.
She had never wavered through dozens, hundreds of negotiations with nobles. The competitors she had stepped over formed a mountain.
Because she had been that person, it was difficult to admit that her heart was wavering.
“Ha...”
Her thoughts tangled together like a spider's web.
I'll bring down the merchant guild head and take that seat. I'll become not Patrian's true power, but its actual owner.
It was a choice fraught with danger.
Even if mercury ran through her veins, that did not mean her emotions had frozen as well.
Irina was vaguely afraid.
If she failed, being expelled from the guild was a foregone conclusion.
Even if she succeeded, there was a high chance that the Young Lord would use her.
“...No.”
Irina slowly clenched both hands into fists.
The die had already been cast.
She had come too far to start calculating the value of her choice now.
“I look forward to working with you, Merchant Guild Head Irina.”
A bad move that might cost her life.
Even if it killed her, she did not care. She had already prepared herself.
A merchant only made enormous profits when putting their life on the line.
* * *
Patrian Merchant Guild, Imperial Capital branch VIP lounge.
“Merchant Guild Head! When on earth will that product arrive?”
“My daughter hasn't eaten or drunk anything for days! She's making a fuss, saying she absolutely will not attend social events without those cosmetics!”
“I'll pay any premium you want! Please supply our house first!”
The ladies and young misses of great noble houses that ruled the Empire.
Normally, they would have held their heads high, but now they had forgotten their dignity and clung to one man.
At the center of it all stood Ethan, head of the Patrian Merchant Guild.
He barely managed to hide his smile as he listened to the uproar around him.
‘Who knew it would have this much impact already?’
The cosmetics known only to Lucia had spread far beyond even Ethan's expectations.
A man possessed by money would never let such an immense opportunity pass him by.
Ethan dramatically raised both arms.
“Please, everyone, calm yourselves. Didn't the merchant guild head of Patrian promise you?”
At his voice, the lounge fell silent as a grave.
Expectant faces turned toward Ethan.
“Which merchant guild has the Empire's finest distribution and information networks? Patrian. There is nothing in this world money cannot buy, and there is no item beyond Patrian's information network.”
“Then you can get those cosmetics?”
“Not only can we get them. We're aiming for exclusivity.”
The lounge grew noisy again at Ethan's words, but this time was different.
These were not impatient cries, but the exclamations the merchant guild head had intended to provoke.
“Before long, we will supply them in unlimited quantities under the name of Patrian.”
It was a blatant lie.
They did not even know where the cosmetics came from, let alone what ingredients they contained.
Still, that did not matter. It was only a matter of time before they found out.
“Did you all hear the rumor?”
At that moment, one of the ladies standing at the front of the lounge spoke behind her fan.
She was an informant Irina had planted beforehand.
“I heard that Lady Lucia is looking for a business partner to distribute the cosmetics before the upcoming dinner party. Apparently, she has already made contact with the Astell Merchant Guild...”
At those words, Ethan's brow twitched.
Lucia was looking for a business partner? And it might be the Astell Merchant Guild?
It was the moment Ethan's vanity and impatience caught fire.
‘I'm the only one who can stand beside Lady Lucia. How dare Astell set its sights on her?’
Ethan cleared his throat theatrically, drawing everyone's attention.
“I promise you all this. In Patrian's name, we will deliver to every one of you before next week's dinner party.”
His bluff had spiraled out of control, and he had even set a delivery deadline.
Even if she acted proud and tried to join hands with another merchant guild, it did not matter.
‘I’ll use these enormous advance payments to buy up every workshop and distribution channel in the Imperial Capital. Once I dry up the source of the ingredients, even Lady Lucia will have no choice but to reveal the secret formula.’
To Ethan, an unfunded promise was simply plunder backed by capital.
He believed there was nothing money could not buy, that even people's hearts could be broken with money.
If they secured exclusivity, Lucia would benefit too.
If he monopolized the production line, Lucia's incentives would be immense as well.
He knew Lucia was not someone who moved for money alone.
But if he pressured her with money and added a special relationship to the equation, even Lucia would not be able to refuse.
He had even heard that she was looking for a business partner.
“Even if we promise unlimited supply, the initial stock will inevitably be limited. Therefore, I would like to offer premium goods first to those who place advance payments.”
“Ten platinum coins! I'll reserve two sets, including one for my daughter!”
“I'll pay ten million shillings! Put my name at the very top of the ledger!”
“Move aside! We're a marquis house! We'll pay whatever you ask, so bring ours first!”
The ladies thrust forward checks and gold coins, each competing with the others.
As he watched the money pile up before his eyes, Ethan's grin stretched to his ears.
“One at a time, one at a time. Hey, what are you all doing? Bring the ledger at once and record this!”
The employees who had watched the scene hesitated.
They approached Ethan and whispered quietly.
“Merchant Guild Head, we have not even identified what the product is yet. Is it really all right to accept such large advance payments so suddenly...?”
“You should withdraw the promise even now. If we cannot obtain it by the promised date, the penalty fees will...”
Ethan scoffed.
“Do you think I don't know that? Patrian's name itself is credit, and there is no one in the Imperial Capital who doesn't know about Lucia and me. Besides, we need to secure cash through advance payments so we can use it to learn the cosmetics' secret formula or buy entire workshops, don't we?”
“...”
“Enough talk. Write down the advance payments in the ledger. These reservations alone exceed the guild's sales for an entire year.”
Ethan waved them away and turned around.
There was not the slightest hesitation in his hand as he accepted enormous advance payments and stamped the documents.
‘With this money, I might even make those Cardenos bastards, especially that bastard Astin, kneel.’
Ethan began to plan inwardly.
How could he use this money to deal Cardenos a devastating blow?
If he distributed it as political funds to Cardenos's enemies in the imperial court, or used money to block the logistics network entering the western territory...
The image of Astin in despair made the corners of his mouth rise on their own.
Ethan's delusion did not stop there.
There was nothing money could not buy. It could even buy people's hearts.
And if something could not be bought, then one had to consider whether there was simply not enough money.
Beginning as Lucia's business partner and ultimately becoming her lover, Ethan painted a rosy future in his mind.
Ethan was a merchant, after all. He blindly believed in the power of money.
* * *
At that moment.
Someone watched the VIP lounge from the second-floor balcony.
“Ha...”
Irina adjusted her gold-rimmed monocle and sighed.
The scene below was both comedy and tragedy.
The merchant guild head was frantically gathering advance payments without realizing he was digging his own grave.
His boast about unlimited supply would soon become a noose around his neck.
‘It's shameful that man is my superior.’
She looked away and slipped a hand into her pocket.
Her fingertips touched a small mana stone with a bluish glow.
It was a communication stone secretly used by only a handful of informants.
When she fed a faint trace of mana into it, the communication stone vibrated softly.
[What is the situation?]
A man's dry, low voice emerged. It was Young Lord Astin.
“Just as expected. He took the bait.”
Irina reported in a low voice devoid of emotion.
“He is collecting advance payments from the Imperial Capital's nobles. He has even set the delivery deadline for next week's dinner party.”
A faint chuckle came from beyond the communication stone.
[Starting today, I will buy up every Patrian promissory note circulating on the market.]
Merchant guilds inevitably issued credit notes to circulate enormous funds.
What would happen if someone monopolized those notes and demanded immediate repayment on the same day?
What if it coincided with the ladies demanding refunds and penalty fees?
Patrian's finances would be exposed in a single day, triggering a chain of bankruptcies.
For merchants, it was the most legal and most inhumane method.
Of course, Patrian was the Empire's largest merchant guild.
The promissory notes circulating in the market would amount to a staggering sum beyond estimation.
“Young Lord, although purchasing the notes would allow us to recover the principal...”
Irina continued almost in a whisper.
“The Patrian notes circulating on the market are too vast even to estimate. Mobilizing that much cash at once would be difficult even for a grand ducal house.”
[Do not worry about the funds. We can put up Cardenos's credit and the great mines of the west as collateral. And...]
There was also the military funding granted by the imperial family.
Astin did not say that much.
[In any case, our funding will not run dry. Trust me.]
If Young Lord Astin stated it so firmly, he must have something to rely on.
“Understood. I will begin my work as well.”
[Good. You have done well.]
Click.
The communication cut off unilaterally.
Irina put the communication stone, now stripped of its blue glow, back into her pocket.
Slowly, she lowered her gaze and watched the scene below.
Ethan was still smiling happily in the lounge.
“Laugh while you can, Merchant Guild Head.”
Exactly one week remained until the Imperial Capital's greatest merchant lost his head.
But removing Ethan would not be the end of it.
Irina looked beyond that.
‘I’ll have to deal with Young Lord Astin.’
From the beginning, he had intended to use her to seize control of the merchant guild.
Once this was over, Astin would become an opponent incomparable to Ethan.
Irina regarded that anticipated future as a coming reality.
She did not need a shield to block Astin. Trying to block him clumsily would only leave her on the receiving end.
She needed another blade, or a self-destruct switch.
Irina decided she would act before he could betray her.
Author's Note
This is today's second chapter release. Another chapter will be posted at 12 PM.
Footnotes:
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