LUCIA

Chapter 107 Negotiation

Negotiations with the king were easy.

Kwiz usually wasn't pleased with his brother-in-law whose temperament was different from his father-in-law, and he was personally fond of Roy. In light of his experience of being guarded by Roy for over a year, he believed that Roy was not a brute that would kill people for no reason.

So when Hugo said that he would help with the chronic financial deficit, Kwiz gladly took the bait.

"But did Sir. Krotin say that he would do it? You people really..."

To nobles, honor was more important than their life. Knights were also the same. They couldn't even conceive the idea of saving their life by abandoning their honor. Kwiz couldn't understand both Roy, who agreed to such a thing and Hugo, who suggested such a plan.

Roy, who would recover fine even if he stepped in filthy dog shit. Kwiz, who could throw away his life for honor, like it was a worthless thing. They both stood at two extremes. Understanding each other would never be possible.

"There is one condition. It's not enough with only this king agreeing to it. If my father-in-law agrees, then this king will also agree. As for persuading my father-in-law, I'll leave that to Gong."

"I understand. I have a condition too. Please turn a blind eye towards the truth of this incident."

The dead could not speak, the less mouths that knew, the more secrets could be kept. Hugo was not troubled at all by the amount of effort he had to put in to completely detach his wife from this incident. He wanted to protect her like a flower cultivated in a greenhouse. He didn't want her to have even a small scratch.

His wife was the Duchess and the Lady of the Taran House, whose every action and conduct drew people's attention. As long as you were famous in the social circles, rumors that followed after your name were endless. It was something you had put up with unless it was a fatal scandal, but Hugo planned to thoroughly block any reason for his wife to receive public rebuke and be gossiped about due to an unsavory incident.

"Hm? Then you mean this king won't know why Sir. Krotin did such a thing?"

Hugo ignored Kwiz's grumbling that he was so curious that he couldn't sleep.

"I will talk to Ramis Gong and inform Your Majesty of the outcome."

* * *

Hugo promptly met with the Duke of Ramis that evening. The two sat opposite each other in an exclusive aristocrat club in the city. After exchanging brief greetings, Hugo immediately proceeded to the main subject.

He handed the three documents that he brought with him to the Duke of Ramis.

"The first document contains information about the day of the incident according to the testimony of my knight who is currently imprisoned. You will be able to know why your son became like that."[1]

Hugo judged that he could not use money to negotiate with the Duke of Ramis. He was not someone that would exchange his son's life for money.

He watched as the Duke of Ramis' face darkened and clouded over as he read the document.

The Duke of Ramis thought that there was something off about David's death, but he could not guess that it was connected to the Duchess at all.

It's not like he could ask his dead son, so he could not figure out what his son was trying to do in the princess' break room or why he gave the magical tool to the Countess and could only wake up from restless sleeps and pound his chest in frustration.

Based on Roy's testimony, the documents presented a number of circumstantial evidences to support it, with a recorded trail of David and Anita's continuous meetings, information gotten from the people planted in the bar, and a track record of David making passes at the Duchess and so on and so forth.