The first thing Estella saw as she stepped down from the carriage was a man with a green armband swinging a whip, mercilessly lashing someone. The Squirrel Mercenary Band, who had followed on horseback behind the carriage, hurriedly dismounted as well.

The man whose wrists were tied to the flogging frame looked to be in his mid-thirties. His clothes were already shredded as if he’d been beaten several times over, and at his feet fresh blood pooled in sheets.

The laborers gathered around the caning rack were so cowed they couldn’t even raise their heads. Yet among them, a few men pointed and snickered at the blood-soaked victim, their laughter splitting off from the tension-choked air to create a dissonant, uncanny terror.

Estella felt as if the blood in her veins were surging up backward.

“What do you think you’re doing!”

Smack!

Her high, cutting shout overlapped with the whip as it traced an arc in the air and crashed down. The unconscious man’s body swayed limply like a slab of meat.

Bruno, having leapt from his horse, flashed forward like lightning and clamped a rough hand around the construction supervisor’s arm. Yanked up without warning, the supervisor screamed and thrashed, then was flung to the ground without mercy. The creepy laughter that had been coming from all directions cut off at once.

“Argh! Which bastard—!”

The man rolling on the ground bellowed at Bruno, then spotted Estella standing behind him and his eyes flew wide.

“M-My Lady!”

As if he’d never fallen, he sprang to his feet and bowed so deeply it was cringing to watch. He looked very loyal and very polite, but Estella’s blue eyes held nothing but contempt and wrath as she looked at him.

Meanwhile, Lily and Haru had hurriedly cut the man’s ropes, and the freed man’s wife and young daughter ran to him in panic.

“Dear!”

“Dad! Huuu—hic, Dad!”

Though wife and daughter called his name, he hung limp like a dead man and didn’t respond.

“Lily, go fetch the doctor at once! And a carriage to take him to the hospital! Gerard, check his wounds.”

At Estella’s order, Lily vaulted into the saddle and vanished, and Gerard quickly examined the man. He fished a small ointment tin from one of the many pockets on his vest. But the amount was far too little—useless for wounds this bad.

At the brutality—something you ought not do to a human being—Estella had to grit her teeth to keep from drawing her sword.

“What on earth is going on here?”

To Estella’s frost-edged question, the man stepped forward as if he’d been waiting for it.

“An honor to meet you. I’m Edren, the construction supervisor in charge of the southern wall project.”

From his tone alone, you could tell how proud he was of his title.

“And?”

“That wretch skimmed off materials and sold them! A thief worse than vermin!”

Edren jabbed a finger at the already-unconscious man and raised his voice, face flushed with self-importance. The men who’d been sniggering in the crowd chimed in eagerly as if on cue.

“That’s right! A thief!”

“Scum like that needs the lash!”

“You see? I didn’t whip him for nothing. A man like that—”

He was putting a little more force into his voice when—

“No!”

The young daughter, who had just wiped her tears, sprang to her feet. The girl, twelve at most, somehow found the courage to cry out in a voice so desperate and loud it was nearly a scream.

“My father isn’t a thief! You’re the thief!”

“What was that! You little—!”

When Edren bulged his eyes and roared as if to charge, the wife grabbed the child in a rush and hugged her tight. Edren stared at mother and daughter with a look of disbelief, then smacked his thick chest with both hands as if overcome by indignation.

“Unbelievable! Don’t listen to, or believe, the words of such lowborn wretches. They should be grateful just to be given work, but they deceived me without a shred of gratitude.”

Not to be outdone, the girl immediately fell to her knees before Estella and bowed her head. A girl no older than Luka, at most, planted her brow on the ground like a commander resolved to die.

“My Lady! My father is absolutely not a thief. He is. He’s the thief! My father pointed out that the construction materials were being skimmed, and then he was the one who got whipped!”

“Th-that wench! How dare she tell such lies—!”

“Punish the thief-girl along with her!”

At Edren’s shout, pointing at the girl, the men in the crowd again tried to whip up the mob. The girl glared at them through streaming tears, then cried to Estella again, raw and pleading.

“They’re all in on it together! My father and I saw with our own eyes—at dawn, they were trading with people outside the walls.”

“That’s not true! I’m innocent, My Lady! Those brats do nothing but lie—have them flogged on the spot—”

“Shut that mouth.”

Edren had been shouting in a voice twice as loud as the girl’s, but at Estella’s words—ground out between clenched teeth—his mouth clicked shut like a clam. The words were so soft you had to strain to hear them, but Estella’s voice carried a force that dominated the crowd. A chill so cold it prickled the spine made Edren gulp dryly without realizing it.

“…You said your name was Edren?”

At her low question, he didn’t even think to answer—just gaped, nodding dumbly.

“Whose words are lies—we’ll learn that by investigating.”

“Pardon?”

Estella gazed at his glossy, pitch-black eyes—so dull they made him look stupid—and continued in an icy tone.

“Bring me the intake/outgoing materials ledger, the wage payment ledger, and the transport record ledger.”

“…Pardon?”

“Since when have you served as construction supervisor?”

“Th-this year.”

“Then bring every ledger from last year up to the most recent entries. It’ll be heavy to carry alone, so—Bruno?”

“Yes, I’ll go with him.”

As Bruno stepped forward and rumbled his reply, Edren frantically waved his hands, his face ashen.

“T-the place where the ledgers are kept is… very, very dusty. It’s too shabby a place for such an honored person to go on foot. I can fetch them alone—”

“It’s fine. I’m a shabby person. Lead the way.”

This time Bruno cut him off cleanly and jerked his chin to say: move.

Edren had spent decades in construction and was bulkier than most men. But compared to Bruno, he didn’t measure up at all.

A thick bull neck, a chest jutting like rock, forearms thicker than most men’s thighs.

Edren thought that if Bruno put his mind to it and swung a fist, a man like him might die in a single blow.

A short while later.

Estella opened the ledger Edren grudgingly handed over. Because it hadn’t been stored properly, the loose leaves were crumpled and torn; with each page she turned, hastily scrawled script and sloppy calculations met her eye. As it happened, the ledger for today listed stock brought in at daybreak.

“Materials received today… fifteen hundred toras of stone, one hundred sacks of lime, fifty oak pillars.”

As she read aloud, Estella’s gaze trembled, cold.

“And yet what’s piled before the wall isn’t even half that. Where did all those materials vanish to? Don’t tell me they’ve already been used in the work. The sun’s barely been up.”

Her voice, low and chill, pressed him.

“Th-that…”

Sweating coldly, Edren stammered, then shot a finger straight at the blood-soaked man.

“He skimmed it all! That’s why I was personally investigating!”

But just then, the Squirrels who’d gone off dragged several men back roughly and forced them to their knees before Estella. They were the ones who had been snickering in the crowd earlier; now their faces were blotched all over.

“We investigated as ordered.”

No sooner had Bruno finished speaking than the men flicked frightened looks at one another and, as if prearranged, shouted in chorus.

W-we saw it! The supervisor skimmed the materials!”

“He sold them to merchants outside the gate, then stuffed money in our hands to keep us quiet!”

“We only did as we were ordered. Please spare us!”

One of them, who’d lost his front teeth courtesy of Bruno, whistled his sibilants—but their testimonies, one after another, roughly matched the gaps in the sloppily kept ledger.

“I’m innocent! Those bastards are all in it together! All I’ve done is work hard for Wintfall!”

“No! We’re the ones who are wronged! We only did what Edren told us to!”

“There are materials hidden in a warehouse outside the wall—Edren stashed them to sell in the evening.”

Cornered, the rats turned on each other like madmen to survive, and just as they said, Estella found the pre-skimmed materials in a warehouse outside the wall—along with neatly arranged double books. Of course, the only reason the ledger was found was because Bruno had enjoyed a very peaceful, very cordial conversation with Edren.

A few hours earlier, Edren had been brandishing petty power on the strength of his little green armband. Now, in a blink, he was bound and kneeling as a criminal alongside the men he’d bribed.

Estella glared coldly at the trembling Edren and read out his charges in a loud voice.

“Criminal Edren, though entrusted with the grave task of rebuilding Wintfall’s walls, sought petty profit by skimming and selling materials, and foisted that guilt upon an innocent man. This threatens the safety of Wintfall, and moreover, you wielded a whip without authority and inflicted a cruel punishment; thus you have committed a grave crime against both the law and the moral order of this domain. By my command: Edren shall receive a whipping equal to twice the number he administered, and shall labor in penance until the value of the skimmed materials is repaid in full. Furthermore, all wealth illicitly amassed until now shall be confiscated without exception.”

Edren’s vision went black. He sprawled flat before Estella and wailed.

“Spare me! My Lady! Please! I was wrong! If I take all that, I—I’ll die! And without that money, where will my daughter and wife live! My wife and daughter have done nothing wrong!”

“Don’t worry. We’ll make sure you don’t die. And it wasn’t yours to begin with—what’s unjust about losing it? If you don’t want even the daughter you love so dearly put to labor, you’d best keep that mouth shut.”

He cried out in desperation, but at Estella’s words as she looked down at him, he could only clamp his mouth shut.

“Waaaaaaah!”

“Hurrah!”

The cheers at the satisfying judgment filled the area below the southern wall.

Meanwhile, the man who had barely regained consciousness thanks to Gerard’s first aid and Martino’s hastily administered treatment looked at Estella—who had judged Edren without a shred of mercy—and felt a thrill run through his whole body. He’d thought nobles had no interest in the lives of low people like him. But Lady Estella was different.

It wasn’t enough that she’d saved him; she had even called a doctor and treated him with expensive medicine with considerate care—yet she had no blood or tears for the wicked.

“Are you coming to? I’m sorry I didn’t realize sooner and only intervened now. I’m ashamed.”

At some point Estella had come close; she set one knee on the ground before the man, who had managed to sit up, took his hand, and apologized.

“No, My Lady. Just saving me like this is already… thank you.”

Looking at him with pity and regret, Estella continued.

“Go to the hospital and finish your treatment.”

“No, I’m all right!”

The man frantically waved his hands. Seeing his shabby clothing, Estella easily guessed he was saying so because of the cost.

“The treatment’s already paid. In fact, overpaid. Thanks to you, we recovered materials that were about to be lost, and reclaimed assets of the marquisate that Edren had embezzled. We ought to give you a reward, rather. Tell me your name.”

As if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing, the man answered through tears, voice thick.

“…G-Garen.”

It was the moment Garen, the great architect of Wintfall, became Estella’s man.

Chapter 182

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