"Oh!"

  "A different color!"

  At a glance, different red and blue flames stirred the householders.

  "That’s the way……"

  Lulak nodded, sweeping his beard.

  "The reddish side is the real Lombardy check. It’s counterfeit that the flame is blue."

  Shananet answered, putting out the match before all the checks were burned.

  "As you can see, it’s an easy way to tell by just burning one corner. Before the important part with the money on it gets burned."

  "If that’s enough, you’ll be able to check it right at the counter! Burning it on fire! It’s a really unimaginable way, Madame Shananet!"

  Grodic Bray said incredibly in a very excited voice.

  "How the hell did you figure this out?"

  "……I was lucky trying to figure out how to tell this and that by myself."

  "You’re amazing!"

  Before Shananet answered, there was a slight gap but no one noticed it.

  "That’s Shananet!"

  "What a groundbreaking way. Who could have thought of it!"

  The eyes of the householders who looked at the fake and real checks naturally turned to Lulak.

  Everyone is waiting for Lulak’s decision.

  Lulak finally looked at Viese and Shananet once.

  Shananet, who was confident but did not smile, and Viese’s face, which was distorted by anger, looked at him at the same time.

  The householder sometimes has to make difficult decisions for the family.

  Now is the time for that.

  Lulak spoke in a low voice.

  "Let Shananet serve as acting patriarch until I return."

  It was the moment when Lord of Lombardy’s representative changed from Viese to Shananet.

  Viese protested in a tearful voice.

  "Father!"

  But Lulak seemed to have no intention of reversing that decision.

  He only looked at Viese, who cried for himself with a face that had no room for a needle.

  "Do you know what this means right now? Father, you have just officially recognized my sister, who is a woman as a candidate for succession!"

  "You think I don’t know that?"

  "Are you really going to do this?"

  Viese couldn’t beat the anger, so he screamed with blood on his neck.

  "You can’t do this just for one counterfeit check! I mean, you can’t treat me like this!"

  It’s as unfair as a man who’s been deprived of what he deserves.3

  "Do you think it’s because of one thing that led you to retire as a Lord?"

  "If not, what is it!"

  "……I think I made the right decision."

  Lulak said coldly.

  "You should go now."

  There was nothing more he could do.

  Viese, who was shaking with his fists clenched, finally glared at Shananet with his killer eyes and walked out of the bedroom.

  The door closed with a loud noise, but no one cared.

  Lulak clicked his tongue and shook his head with a sigh, and the householders vassal family breathed a sigh of relief.

  They looked like they could breathe now.

  Then Shananet looked back at Florentia, which had so far stood motionless in the doorway.

  A door that’s closed with a roar might be scary.

  Florentia didn’t care about that sort of thing.

  She just stood there with no expression on her face.

  No, rather the child was smiling.1

  Shananet knows.

  A seething sense of victory and achievement that doesn’t match that calm face at first glance.

  Looking at the sparkling eyes of Florentia under her long eyelashes, Shananet smiled.3

  * * *

  The day Clerivan visited Shananet’s residence.

  A neat and cold Clerivan and an elegant yet soft Shananet sat opposite each other.

  The two are alike but very different.

  "I’m here to give you this, Madame Shananet."

  Clerivan said, putting a small envelope on the table.

  Shananet opened the envelope wondering and checked the contents, and opened her eyes wide with surprise.

  "8000 Gold……?"

  That was quite a lot to be written on a single anonymous note.

  Shananet looked up and stared at Clerivan.

  Even with those eyes without laughter, Clerivan was not embarrassed.

  It was quite a different response from Grodic Bray’s the other day.

  "The money belongs to Shananet. No, to be exact, it’s Lombardy’s money."

  In a polite but extremely business-like way, Clerivan said.

  "It’s the money that Vestian Schultz received the other day when he asked me to turn the diamond mine into the Schultz family."

  "……Are you saying you’ve been asked?"

  Shananet said with a slight frown, but Clerivan only shrugged once.

  "I’m a businessman and a merchant. I’m after anything that benefits more than justice."

  "Benefits……"

  Shananet scanned Clerivan with a serious eye.

  A man who was so loyal to Lord Lulak that she knew he would stay in Lombardy Family.

  But a man who left Lombardy unexpectedly and spread his wings bigger.

  She sure he has found something worth more than Lombardy.

  There was nothing strange about such a man pursuing profit over justice.

  However.

  "I don’t quite understand that. If you’re a real profit seeker, shouldn’t you just take this note without anyone knowing?"

  When asked by Shananet, Clerivan thought for a moment and nodded lightly.

  "In fact, it is more appropriate for me to do so, but……"

  She won’t know what he’s thinking.

  A faint smile smudged over Clerivan’s face.

  "Anyway, it would be the mining company that Vestian Schultz stole from, so I thought it was right to return it to you."

  Shananet looked again at the bill that had been handed to her.

  She couldn’t get a heart-warming answer, but Clerivan was right.

  "Thank you for your honesty, Lord Pellet. The money will be used well by the mining company."

  "How are you these days?"

  Clerivan asked at the end of the conversation.

  "I think Lombardy is making a fuss because of the new acting Lord."

  "……You’re still rumored to be working within Lombardy."

  "I haven’t worked in Lombardy for a long time either."

  At Clerivan’s words, Shananet nodded but drew the line firmly.

  "But the outsider’s excessive interest in the Lombardy family’s affairs……"

  "How about a counterfeit check?"

  "How can you……?"

  "If I could tell you how to identify a counterfeit check, how would you use it?"

  The vigilance on Shananet’s face was new.

  Even though he said he would give her the key to solving the problem right away, Shananet was wary of whether the key was illegally acquired.

  Perhaps, this is what he likes about it.

  Every time he talked with Shananet, Clerivan thought, recalling Florentia, who smiled pleasantly.

  "Here’s the answer."

  Clerivan said, taking another envelope out of his arms and putting it down next to the bill.

  "It’s up to Shananet to decide how to use it."

  Clerivan, who said so, rose from his seat.

  "Oh, and just tell them that’s what you figured out are by yourself. If you tell them the truth, it’ll be a big deal."

  Shananet asked him again.

  "How did you know?"

  But Clerivan had no intention of solving the question.

  Thinking of a way to answer well, Clerivan recalled the right words and curled up the corners of one’s mouth slightly.

  "It’s a trade secret."6

  Looking at Shananet with a smiling face, Clerivan walkout.

  * * *

  Awakened by a small sound coming from the side, Shananet turned her head and looked where the sound came from.

  "Anything else besides milk?"

  Tia was grumbling, putting down a glass of milk with a frown.

  The twins, who were watching the scene, said a word.

  "No. Tia has to drink milk."

  "Yeah, you have to be big. You’re still too small."

  "What’s wrong with me? You two are ignorantly big. I’m the average."

  Two weeks have passed since Shananet became an acting householder.

  Lombardy was moving steadily, no comparison with when Viese was sitting there.1

  Lulak said, ’I’ll rest a little longer!’ He has extended his nursing period for another month.2

  Viese, who was removed from his position as Lord representative, left for Angenas, Seral’s father.2

  It was a normal trip to relax using the hot spring in the west, but everyone knew it was because he didn’t dare to watch Shananet perform the work of Lord representative.

  And today was Shananet’s first holiday since she became acting Matriarch

  The twins didn’t go on sword training today either and stayed in the mansion.

  Click.

  Shananet put down the teacup and said to the twins.

  "Didn’t you two say you learned a new test? Why don’t you show it to Tia today?"

  "Shall we?"

  "Tia, look at us!"

  Gilliu and Mayron ran excitedly into the middle ground connected to the drawing-room.

  The loud voices of the two flowed through the wide-open door.

  "I like juice."

  Shananet called Tia as she watched Tia, still grumbling small, reluctantly pick up the milk.

  "Tia."

  "What?"

  Still 12 years old. As twins say, she has to grow up a lot.

  But Shananet spoke slowly and said.

  "Grow up and be Lombardy’s Matriarch, Tia."