Black Iron's Glory

Chapter 154: Guarantee

Sir Fux didn’t know how he made it to the study on the first floor. He never would’ve expected there to be so many people in Claude’s house. The dining hall on the ground hall was practically packed full of people, most of them being townsfolk of some repute. Nobody bothered to greet him. Even those chatting didn’t want to talk to him and merely stared at him quietly. The wordless stares felt like countless needles burrowing into his skin. It was utterly horrible.

There was a small guest lounge on the first floor next to the stairs where some ten people stood. Bidlir Blanche’s presence made Sir Fux feel relatively more comfortable. He was dressed in garrison uniform and when he saw Sir Fux, he went forward to greet him. “Sir, in here.”

The man pointed at the door to the study which was shut tight. That was where the agreements and acknowledgements were signed.

Sir Fux allowed his gaze to sweep through the lounge and saw quite a number of people he recognized. Just as he was about to smile and greet them, however, they all turned their heads away and pretended to be gossiping bystanders. It was obvious that they didn’t want to pay him any heed and didn’t even go in for a greeting.

His smile was replaced by an awkward grimace. He turned his stiff body around and said gloomily to Bidlir, “Let’s go in.”

There weren’t many people within the study. Apart from Chief Justice Kauff and two other bureaucrats, there were four of Morssen’s good friends, who were the investors for the new sailing route as well as the witnesses of the IOU between Morssen and Sir Fux. Apart from Borkal’s father, a great merchant in town, Rublier, who went to Simlock, the rest of the witnesses of the IOU were there.

Claude held his little brother’s hand beside the study table. As his mother had collapsed from grief, Angelina was toughing through her own sadness to take care of her. Even the little snowhound knew to sit outside the bedroom quietly to accompany them. As for Arbeit, he didn’t return home even once. He wrote a letter to give up on his inheritance and had a woman send it over and even asked two crowns for it. Claude was so angry that he couldn’t help but want to drag his elder brother to a corner for a healthy beating to vent his frustrations.

Right now, only Claude could call the shots at home. He brought his brother with him to deal with the people who were there to pay their condolences. Had it not been for Welikro, who brought his father and sister over to deal with most of the matters, he wouldn’t have known what to do himself. Claude was completely clueless when it came to burial ceremonies of this world.

The first thing in the morning, Claude had been awakened by his sister, who stumbled to the wood while crying all the way, and told the nightmarish truth about his father’s suicide. It felt like a lightning bolt struck him on the head. He had transmigrated to this world for two years now and had always lived under his father’s wing. His father’s position as chief secretary made him a relatively rich young master, so to speak, and he started off way better than many webnovel characters he had read about.

At the very least, most of the people within Whitestag would give his father some face. So, the life during the first two years he spent in this world was a relatively smooth one. He lived leisurely as he pleased instead of having to fight all sorts of demons and enemies who were omnipresent just to survive like most webnovel transmigrators. He didn’t have to strive to overcome heaven itself and fight his way there. He had always thought himself as a normal person who only had to live out his life in peace.

In some sense, he thought it best for himself to lead a life of a hermit and hide himself among the populace. So, learning magic and robbing Blacksnake didn’t bother him much. All he asked for was for nobody to discover his identity.

As Li Bai wrote in a poem of his, ‘leave with a flick of the sleeve; leave not your name and looks’. That was something Claude liked a lot. Perhaps all men had a dream to become a hero. That was why Claude was really satisfied with his life so far and didn’t really want anything to change.

What he didn’t expect was that his father, the chief secretary of town, would actually meet so many obstacles in his business venture he planned with his friends to the point that his whole family’s blissful life was drawn in and sacrificed. Additionally, his sister just ran over and told him that the father of the body he inhabited, Morssen, actually chose jumping off a building to end his own life.

It was too late for regret. His crying sister snapped him out of his stupor when she tugged on his hand. Before he could wash up in the morning, he grabbed his clothes and money pouch before leaving for his home on his carriage. He arrived to find that his mother had collapsed from immense grief, much to his terror.

After settling his mother down, he had a neighbor drive his carriage to invite the herbalist from the apothecary over before going to see the spot his father landed. Morssen was still lying on the ground, but his body was already covered up with a bed sheet by Claude’s mother and some neighbors. Blood spilled all over the ground and it was eye-grabbingly terrifying.

A few keepers were patrolling the area to maintain security and stop onlookers from getting too close. Claude knelt directly before the corpse and was filled with regret. It had all happened within two to three short days. The changes were too quick for him to react. Otherwise, he would’ve killed Sir Fux and this wouldn’t have happened.

Whether Sir Fux’s death would cause any commotion wasn’t something Claude was concerned with. The Blacksnake thugs he killed didn’t attract the attention of the bigwigs since they were societal trash which nobody really cared about. But if one of the elites like Sir Fux were killed, the whole three prefectures would be alerted. The kingdom might even send people to investigate and catch the murderer.

It was only when Welikro rushed over that Claude realized he had been kneeling before the corpse for a solid half hour. A keeper came over and pitifully asked Claude to move aside as the justice department was there to inspect the corpse. Fortunately, Morssen wrote a will before his death and the reason for his passing was clear. The check was conducted swiftly.

Before the officials from the justice department left, they instructed Claude to go to a shrine to purchase a coffin to keep Morssen’s body within first and hold a funeral and whatnot. Claude couldn’t take any of that in. In the end, Welikro was the one who drove the carriage back home to get his father and sister to help out with that matter. Only then could Claude muster some energy to read his father’s will.

The will was written for Claude to read. Morssen knew well who he could count on for the family after his departure. In the will, he detailed his intent on letting Bloweyk become the heir. he clearly stated that with five hundred crowns of debt, Arbeit would definitely refuse his birthright as the heir. He instructed Claude not to act emotionally to undertake the debt and render his suicide in vain.

The plan was something Claude would never have thought up. Even though his three years at middle school thought some basic things about the kingdom’s laws, nobody really paid attention and tried to memorize those convoluted things. All they required was to know enough to pass the tests with. Who would’ve known that Morssen could’ve exploited the Act of Creditors with his life to thwart Sir Fux’s scheme. Only after two decades could Sir Fux reclaim the debt fully. That made him into a huge joke.

But the price paid was too large, and it was Morssen’s life. Claude finally understood why he chose suicide. Apart from that, there was no way to stop Sir Fux from snatching their assets away. Twenty years was a long time and as long as they can stop the debt, who knew what else could happen??

With Welikro and his family’s help, Morssen’s funeral was taken care of without issue. Welikro drove around town busily and delivered the notice to Morssen’s good friends while buying the necessary stuff. Kubrik and a few neighbors set the area around the mansion up for the funeral under Welikro’s sister’s lead. They set up the coffin in the middle of the lot and had a painter draw Morssen’s portrait.

Claude remained within the house to tend to the people who attended his father’s funeral. They were mostly people of status in town and those that were allowed inside the mansion were at least dignitarians. As for those whose status wasn’t high enough, they were stopped at the entrance and only had to mourn together outdoors. They would put a paper flower on Morssen’s casket and wear a white flower brooch bought from the wargod shrine on their chest to show that they’re mourning.

Soon, Morssen’s casket was covered in countless paper flowers. The whole place turned into a sea of white flowers. Welikro went to the wargod shrine three whole times to get those brooches and the total cost of those brooches racked up to around three crowns. Everyone within the shrine was busy making more.

Only after Bloweyk bemoaned to him that he was hungry did Claude find that he hadn’t eaten or even took a single drink since the morning. He hurried to find something to feed his brother and got his sister and mother some food.

Fortunately, that day would be the busiest day. He only had to get the matters about inheritance and debt settled and the next day or two would be much easier. The funerals in this world were three-day affairs. The body had to first be buried in the cemetery of a shrine. Then, a priest from the shrine would be hired to pray for the body so that the souls of the departed could go to the kingdom of the gods for eternal rest.

Claude looked coldly at Sir Fux and Bidlir Blanche. He didn’t wear any expression on his face and looked instead like a lifeless object.

Sir Fux nodded to acknowledge the others in the room, only to find that not a single person paid him any heed. He could only greet Kauff.

Kauff pointed at the debt contract on the table and expressionlessly said, “Sign your name here, Sir Fux. Please act fast. Time is short and I still have to return to the town hall to archive documents related to this proceeding.”

Sir Fux smiled apologetically and stepped forward. But when he lifted the pen, he felt the contemptful gazes coming from behind him. All of the sudden, the pen felt so heavy that he wasn’t able to write his name down. He understood that those four witnesses in the study knew what was up with the IOU. They had signed their name back then and were now forced to come to officiate the debt. In a certain sense, they were complicit in Sir Fux’s ‘murder’ of Morssen.

After the Tomas signed his name as witness, he turned and spat to Sir Fux, “If I knew this would happen back then, I’d never become a witness even if I’d die for it. I’d even advise my friend Morssen to not sign the IOU.”

The four of them signed their names on the debt agreement. One copy was given to the creditor and another to the debtor. Two others would be archived at the town hall.

Sir Fux held the agreement in his hand and smiled benevolently. He turned to Claude and said, “You must be Claude, right? I’m really sorry. I didn’t think that this would happen either. If I had known, I would’ve rushed back from the prefectural capital to meet your father. How about this as a token of my apology… If you’re willing to offer up your mansion to me, I will call the debt off. What do you think?”

Even though the terms of the debt were agreed upon, nobody would stop the debtor from paying it off early. It was something done willingly and couldn’t be forced, after all, and that wasn’t illegal in the slightest.

Claude’s discomforting dead-fish-like gaze which he shot Sir Fux finally changed. Now, it was one of mocking and contempt. He cracked a smile that revealed the whites of his teeth. “I guarantee you, Sir Fux, that for as long as you live, this mansion will definitely remain a property of the Ferd household…”