“Pocket watch? You mean... this thing?” Herscherik held up the pocket watch that Ruseria had given him. His habit of always carrying it with him had saved his life during the fire.
“That was Count Ruseria’s... So I thought that... Your Highness was connected to him...”
“Ah, I see.” Herscherik recalled that Grim had met Ruseria at his cell the night before his execution, demanding that Ruseria hand over some piece of evidence. Ruseria had refused. Herscherik figured that Grim must have turned over every stone in this very manor that had once belonged to Ruseria. After months of not finding anything and nothing happening to him, Herscherik must have come knocking at his door just as he was beginning to think he could relax. “So you tried to assassinate me.” As his curiosity was now satisfied, Herscherik couldn’t help but be impressed.
Grim wasn’t entirely wrong, after all. Herscherik and Ruseria were allied in a way, except that Herscherik didn’t know what evidence Grim wanted so badly. The only thing he’d received from Ruseria was that pocket watch and his loyalty. Herscherik did have to commend Grim for sniffing out a dangerous situation. Ruseria had passed almost two years prior, when Herscherik was still three years old. He hadn’t expected anyone to make a connection between him and Ruseria. After witnessing Grim’s eye for detail in spotting the pocket watch, as well as his self-preservation instinct in action, Herscherik could understand why Barbosse considered him somewhat valuable.
Then, Herscherik wondered exactly what piece of evidence Grim was looking for. It was something crucial that Barbosse wanted to erase, even going so far as to frame Ruseria for a crime he didn’t commit. Maybe that evidence could become a powerful weapon to Herscherik. However, the prince immediately reconsidered. It didn’t seem wise to fixate on that, especially when he didn’t even know if he could properly utilize it even if he knew what it was. What was worse, the evidence would have originated from Ruseria, who had already been sentenced to death for treason. Even if he could prove Ruseria’s innocence, he wasn’t sure how much weight that piece of evidence would carry. Besides, Herscherik wasn’t optimistic enough to think that he could find it when the minister’s faction had failed to do so over the course of several years. Another concern was for his own safety, in the event that news of him acquiring said evidence reached Barbosse. Herscherik knew better than anyone that he still lacked the power to take him on. It was too risky, considering that he didn’t even know if he could acquire the actual evidence. Not finding out about this might be safer in the long run.
If it’s meant to be, it’ll come to me, Herscherik concluded.
“Let’s move on. Schwarz?” The prince turned to his butler.
“Right here, Your Highness.” Kuro produced a set of papers from his pockets and displayed them so the count could recognize them.
Color drained from Grim’s face. “That’s—”
“Evidence that you’ve been smuggling our weapons to the Empire.”
To the southwest of the Gracis Kingdom stood the Atrad Empire. While Gracis had a longer history, Atrad had recently expanded their military and had begun to threaten Gracis’s dominance. In fact, there had been a few recent clashes at their border, as well as one large scale war in their history together.
The sheaf of papers Kuro had produced was a letter written to Grim from said Atrad Empire. Its content suggested that it was merely one entry in a continued series of communication.
Grim protested. “I was told to—”
“By who? We have a bunch more, by the way.”
Kuro pulled out more papers that proved Grim’s various wrongdoings. On top of selling weapons to the Empire, the list of Grim’s crimes included illegal taxation and intimidation of his people, falsified requests for national aid, defrauding the national treasury, and much more.
Herscherik was dumbfounded. He had initially noticed the corruption when investigating the armory inventory. Supplies that were supposed to be in the armory were never delivered. Actually, Herscherik had checked with the supplier in the castle town to find that the delivery address had been changed from the castle to a location near the border. He had immediately returned to the castle in order to verify this fact, but he couldn’t find a single paper trail that led to the change in delivery address. It didn’t help that reports of new shipments had been lacking due to interdepartmental drama, leaving the entire issue to fester unchecked for a long time.
Another thing to consider was that one of the pieces of evidence used to frame Ruseria was a letter from the Empire. Even if the letter itself was forged, Herscherik had thought that they must have needed some sort of reference in order to produce a convincing forgery of a foreign document. So, Herscherik had kept an eye on the person who wanted Ruseria gone the most and had shown his animosity.
Grim’s expression became sicklier as his crimes were uncovered, one by one. In the end, his face looked entirely devoid of color.
Grim squeezed out a response. “I’m not the only who—”
“You think you get a free pass just because someone else is committing the same crime?” Herscherik interrupted with audible irritation.
He didn’t subscribe to that sort of mindset. In fact, he actively despised it, even in his previous life. It showed an utter lack of responsibility. If this was the kind of mindset that had inundated the country, Herscherik thought, he had to change that.
After Herscherik coldly countered, Grim groveled onto the floor. “P-Please, spare my life! Please don’t kill me!”
“You think you deserve to live?” Herscherik’s tone was much too cold for his age. Kuro showed a flicker of surprise at the drastic change in his master’s tone and attitude. “Count Ruseria was killed for a crime he didn’t commit. You orchestrated that.” It would have been more accurate to say that Barbosse had orchestrated the execution via Count Grim, but that didn’t make a difference to Herscherik at the moment. “‘Only the strong and the cunning survive in this world. Those who are neither—the fools—are rewarded with death after a lifetime of servitude or pay for their insolence with their life...’ right?” Herscherik remembered every word of Grim’s remark, to remind himself of that night.
“Where did you—!?”
Herscherik lifted the corner of his lips. “By your own account, you turned out to be the fool... Do you have anything to say?” Even though he wore a smile, Herscherik’s blue eyes that had always glowed with kindness were as cold as ice as they stared down at Grim.
He knew everything, Grim conceded. The prince saw through it all... All the wealth and status he had built up so far was crumbling to the ground. His entire family would be executed now.
“Now, Count Grim... Let’s make a deal.”
“Huh?” Grim looked up at the unexpected proposal. A deal? A ray of hope returned the color to Grim’s face. “A-Anything, Your Highness. I’ll pledge my eternal loyalty if you’ll spare me!”
“Huh? I don’t want your loyalty. Flush it down the toilet with the rest of your shit.”